Apple Hires New Engineer to Lead HomePod Software

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has hired a new engineer to leads its HomePod software efforts:

The iPhone maker is enlisting Afrooz Family to lead the work, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Family worked at Apple from 2012 to 2016 before leaving to co-found audio startup Syng with former Apple industrial designer Christopher Stringer. Family left the startup earlier this year after helping develop the company’s product, the Cell Alpha.

Apple’s HomePod and HomePod mini have yet to reach mass adoption, compared to smart speakers from Google and Amazon.

The original HomePod was discontinued by Apple back in March of this year. Currently, only the newer HomePod mini is available.

Prior to leaving Apple to work at audio startup Sync, Family worked on the original HomePod as an audio engineer.

A recent report by Bloomberg claimed Apple plans to eventually combine its HomePod and Apple TV into one device, that would also include a front camera for FaceTime calls. This device would reportedly debut in 2023 at the earliest.

We still have our original HomePod which acts as a speaker for the office. Siri is still pretty ‘dumb’ compared to Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. HomePod mini was fine but it wasn’t that that impressive versus what’s already available from Google and Amazon.

What Apple needs to release is a version of HomePod with a large display, so we can see all of our photos, similar to the Nest Hub Max.

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