You can get your hands and ears on Apple's HomePod from February 9

By Alex Choros

Last updated 24 January 2018

Apple will start taking pre-orders for its Siri-powered HomePod smart speaker on January 27, ahead of February 9 release date. Australia is one of the first markets HomePod will be available in, following a delayed global launch; the speaker was originally meant to ship in December last year.

HomePod is priced at $499, and is available in a choice of white or space grey.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled HomePod in the middle of last year, he described it as the company's attempt to "reinvent home music" with a wireless speaker that not only sounds good, but has smarts to back it up. In addition to high quality internals, Apple says the HomePod is spatially aware and can customise how music sounds to its surroundings; for example, pushing music toward the centre of a room.

Siri is the brain behind the HomePod, and has a bunch of new music focused skills. These includes the ability to understand commands like "play something mellow" or "play something new" and answer song specific questions "like who's playing drums on this track" or "when was this recorded?". This functionality is however dependent on an Apple Music subscription.

On top of music knowledge, Siri on the HomePod has access to a lot of the functionality you'd get on your iPhone. You'll be able to talk to your HomePod to play podcast, get news, weather, traffic, set reminders and timers, and control HomeKit enabled smart home appliances.

Apple says HomePod’s six directional microphones mean the speaker will still pick up your voice, even if you’re blasting music.

Despite the delayed launch, the HomePod is still arriving without what some would consider core functionality. Early adopters won’t be able to use two speakers as a stereo pair, or use multiple HomePod speakers in a multiroom audio configuration. These features will be added later in the year via a free software.

Today’s HomePod news comes hot off the heels of Amazon’s announcement that its Alexa-powered Echo speakers will be available in Australia at the start of February.

Amazon Echo and Google Home are the HomePod’s two biggest competitors in the smart speaker space, but Apple seems to have take a speaker-first, smart-second approach to the HomePod. While Google and Amazon want you to fill every room of your house with one of their $79 speakers, the $499 HomePod is positioned as more of a high-end audio option with some brains behind it. Kind of like the Sonos One.