iOS 13 is coming and the HomePod is getting a much needed new features. With iOS 13 HomePod will finally be able to recognize who is speaking to it and tailor its responses accordingly. It will be able to provide personalised music, reminders and more (this is a widely needed feature to make sure it didn’t drop behind its competition at an alarming rate).

Additionally, the HomePod will support handoff from iPhones, so you can play music on your phone and bring it near the HomePod to seamlessly transition the music to the speaker. I don’t think this feature is a real winner and it seems to really only save a few taps on your phone from telling the phone to play your music on a specific device that’s nearby.

These are good updates to the HomePod, but I really would have liked to see Apple releases a range of affordable devices into the HomePod collection, so they can truely start to compete with Google Home and Amazon Echo.