Apple delays HomePod speaker until early 2018

VARIETY.COM: Apple’s HomePod speaker won’t be shipping in time for the holiday season. The company is delaying the commercial availability of the device until next year, it announced recently. 
“We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers,” the company said in a statement. “We’ll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018.”

Apple first announced HomePod at its worldwide developer conference in June, and at the time said that it would ship it by December in the US, UK and Australia, with plans to bring it to additional markets next year. At the time, the company announced a retail price of US$349.

HomePod will come with a Siri integration for voice control, and the device is supposed to automatically adjust to the sonic quality of the room it is placed in.