9to5Mac

Opinion: The original HomePod’s demise is a slow and sad one

By Chance Miller

The original HomePod was released by Apple back in 2018 and was ultimately discontinued in March of this year.

Now, it’s dying a very slow and very sad death, and I’m starting to wonder if we (or Apple?) might have taken it for granted all along. Hear me out on this one.

Rocky from the start The HomePod’s launch was rocky from the start. It was announced at WWDC in 2017 with a $350 price tag and a promise of “reinventing home music.”

Apple said the smart speaker would be available to purchase later that year, but that didn’t actually happen.

Instead, Apple delayed the HomePod’s release to early 2018, saying at the time that it simply needed “a little more time” to get the smart speaker ready for its big launch.

Apple ultimately released the HomePod to the public on January 26, available in space gray and white for $349. The drama didn’t end there, however.

Just over a year later, in April of 2019, Apple did something it very rarely does: it cut the HomePod’s price by $50, giving it a new starting price of $299 in the United States and other countries.

Read more about the demise of the original HomePod, and what might be in store for the future of HomePod at 9to5Mac.com.