Category: Apple HomePod

It looks like the Apple HomePod is about to get a much needed feature:  Calendar access.  Right now HomePod isn’t able to access your calendar.  It can access your Messages, Reminders and Notes, which is handy but having calendar access is key to increasing the productivity of users of the smart speaker.  It looks like it is going to be changing pretty soon.

In the 3rd beta of iOS 11.4, when you go through the process of setting up an Apple HomePod, you now will see an icon for Calendar along with Messages, Reminders and Notes.  It is the strongest indication yet that calendar support is coming – although Apple hasn’t said anything on the topic to date.

While it is far to early to call the Apple HomePod a failure, it is certainly clear that Apple’s take on the smart speaker is struggling to gain ground in the market.  According to a new report at Bloomberg, the company has cut orders of the smart speaker and stores are starting to have inventories of the device pile up as they simply can’t get them sold.

The HomePod has been available for roughly ten weeks now and has managed to land about 10% of the smart speaker market.  That is a distant 3rd behind Amazon Echo (73% of the market) and Google Home (14%).  These figures are according to Slice Intelligence.