Apple's HomePod, Google Home and Amazon Echo all encrypt the voice recordings sent to their respective servers.
A smart speaker is primarily used to stream music and news, set timers and reminders, manage shopping lists, and control connected-home devices like lights or thermostats.
In a statement, Apple said the HomePod is "a breakthrough wireless speaker for the home that delivers incredible audio quality and uses spatial awareness to sense its location in a room and automatically adjust the audio". There's no doubt Alexa is a very capable assistant with a lot of strings to its bow - and voice recognition has evolved to be very good - but the assistants from Apple and Google feel more rounded, thanks to their being in more places.
What was perhaps most interesting was how much more powerful the HomePod sounded in relation to the dedicated speaker also in the room - a Sonos Play:3.
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The Apple HomePod has seven tweeter speakers and one woofer placed inside a rather round and squarish casing.
While HomePod is also equipped with the company's brand of artificial intelligence, Siri, the fact remains that its strongest point is its swift connection to Apple Music with the promise of playing songs from a library of up to 40 million titles.
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In other words, it sort of takes a little bit of everything here and there - a bit of smarts, a bit of audio quality, and a bit of home assistant functionality - ending up as a pretty okay smart home device that can simply blast music.
It is safe to say, though, that judging from the reported sleek white and space grey design, it will definitely appeal to the aesthetic gadget-loving Apple fans and it will likely be a hot sell this Christmas. A person familiar with HomePod's development said it would have the same level of encryption as Siri and HomeKit.
It's possible that Apple knows it can't stay the pace with Alexa or Google Assistant just yet, though it seems to be trying based on its recent acquisitions.
For the Amazon Echo there's Amazon Music, Spotify Premium, Pandora and TuneIn, among others.
Apple HomePod costs much more as well.
For connectivity, both Amazon and Google have their units connect through wi-fi and BlueTooth while the Apple HomePod so far only connects by wi-fi only.
Security conscious users may be more comfortable with Siri storing data for just six months as opposed to Amazon and Google who may hold on to data forever. The Apple HomePod won't be commercially available until December, so there could be changes to it by then.
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