First things first, here’s a hands-on report from Tim Bradshaw, Financial Times:

In Tim’s words:

This is a music-playing device first and foremost, a hi-fi replacement that can go in your living room and sounds really great. I had the chance to hear one up against the Amazon Echo and they are in a completely different league.

To me, this is a defining fork in the road. The HomePod follows the traditional Apple path, that of being the best in class. People who care about music will spend the $349 for a HomePod, getting a top notch music system and Siri functionality to boot.

The HomePod will also help sell Apple Music subscriptions, which will help drive sales of iPhones and AirPods, HomeKit gear, etc. Round and round it goes.

From this Washington Post review:

Onstage, Apple’s worldwide head of marketing, Phil Schiller, described how the speaker analyzes the song it’s playing and adjusts its output. For example, with a vocal-heavy track, it may emphasize middle tones, while a song with a driving beat will get more emphasis on the bass. The idea is that consumers will never have to mess with settings to optimize their speaker output.

HomePod owners also won’t have to tinker with the speaker to fit its position in a room, Apple said. The speaker is able to detect the surfaces around it and will beam sound to the right spot. If you link multiple speakers, they will adjust to one another’s positions.

And:

Some analysts said they don’t expect the HomePod to catch on as quickly as its cheaper competitors. “Apple will carve out some sales in the smart speaker market with HomePod but will continue to stand far behind Amazon and Google by the end of 2017,” Ronan de Renesse, of the analysis firm Ovum, said in an email.

Since the HomePod won’t ship until December, there’s little risk in that statement. But I do think it’s fair to say Apple is playing from behind, a position in which they are quite comfortable. The market sorts itself out, early adopters cling to the features they find useful, and Apple uses that info to their advantage. The home hub market is maturing and Apple has the right product for their audience. I can’t wait to get mine.

One more thing. Here’s the HomePod video from the WWDC keynote, in case you didn’t get a chance to see it. One of my favorite voices does the voiceover. That’s Julie Adenuga from Beats 1 Radio.