Apple is lastly delivering on some guarantees it made final 12 months about its HomePod speaker, together with giving the machine the flexibility to hyperlink with one other for stereo sound.
The corporate released a software program launch referred to as iOS 11.4 on Tuesday that unlocks extra options for the good speaker.
The announcement comes simply forward of Apple’s developer convention, which begins Monday – the identical convention by which Apple first introduced the speaker a 12 months in the past. Apple has mentioned it needed to verify the options labored effectively for customers earlier than releasing them.
Apple’s HomePod hasn’t been an enormous gross sales hit for the corporate, which launched two years after preliminary merchandise from Amazon.com and Google started dominating the smart-speaker market. Roughly 67 p.c of smart-speaker homeowners have Amazon’s Echo devices, in response to a report earlier this month from eMarketer. Google is a distant second, with about 30 p.c of the market, the report mentioned. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the proprietor of The Washington Submit.)
Apple hasn’t launched gross sales figures for its speaker, however estimates say the HomePod holds about 3 p.c of the general market within the US, in response to a February survey from funding agency Loup Ventures. Subsequent week’s builders convention might carry extra updates to Siri and HomePod as each have been main factors of focus for Apple prior to now 12 months.
Different options coming with the replace embrace Siri voice assistant’s new capacity to manage another non-Apple audio system together with these made by Sonos, Bang & Olufson, Bose and others. That brings Apple extra on par with different good assistants from Google and Amazon, which already work with third-party audio system.
Music lovers additionally will be capable to arrange the HomePod and different audio system by way of Apple’s Dwelling app. The app will group these audio system by room, so now you can ask Siri to play a tune “within the kitchen and the bed room,” for instance.
The brand new software program provides one other characteristic lacking from the HomePod: the flexibility to examine your calendar. That was a significant characteristic lacking for the HomePod at launch, particularly for a tool that is speculated to act because the centre of your good house. Now you’ll ask your HomePod for a rundown of what is in your schedule, so long as you are utilizing Apple’s Calendar app.
Apple can be streamlining its iMessage service, which might now be backed up by way of its iCloud information service to sync all messages throughout your gadgets. Whereas it has been potential to sync your messages throughout gadgets earlier than, the brand new change offers iPhones, Macs and iPads a single encrypted archive. Which means customers will be capable to entry all their messages, even when they get a brand new Apple machine, and deleting a message on one machine removes it throughout your entire gadgets. Apple additionally initially introduced iCloud assist for iMessage at its builders convention final 12 months.
© The Washington Submit 2018
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