After struggling for years to gain meaningful traction in the booming smart speaker market, Apple has officially decided to throw in the towel with the original HomePod. Launched in early 2018 at a lofty $350 price point, the HomePod never commanded strong sales for a variety of reasons.
In addition to being priced at a massive premium compared to popular devices from Amazon.com and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) subsidiary Google, Apple's virtual assistant Siri is widely considered to be inferior, and the Mac maker has long resisted supporting third-party music-streaming services like Spotify, the most popular music-streaming service on the planet. (Apple is working to add support for other services, likely in part due to antitrust criticisms.)
The HomePod Mini is selling much better than its larger sibling. Image source: Apple.
Source Fool.com