How Apple plans on setting the HomePod apart from the competition is that they claim that they will be focusing on audio quality. This isn’t to say that the other smart speakers out there sound terrible, it’s just that for the most part, companies like Google and Amazon tend to emphasize more on its smart functionality rather than its sound quality.
In fact it seems that in order to appeal to audiophiles, it has been discovered that the HomePod will support the FLAC lossless audio format. For those unfamiliar, FLAC is a lossless audio format, meaning that it isn’t compressed like other audio formats such as MP3. Basically you should in theory be able to hear everything that the producer of the song wants you to hear, assuming of course you have a decent enough sound setup.
Apple does support lossless audio formats, although for the longest time ever the company used their own format called ALAC, and it was actually only last year that Apple started to support FLAC, and it’s good to see that the support has been extended to the HomePods through AirPlay 2 playback, presumably due to it being able to support higher bandwidth compared to traditional Bluetooth.
Of course some audiophiles might argue that going wireless already degrades the sound quality compared to wired, but if you prefer convenience and mobility, then this seems to be like the best of both worlds. The HomePod is currently set for a release on the 9th of February with pre-orders kicking off on the 26th of January where it will be priced at $349.
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