Apple delays HomePod release until 2018

Looks like Apple lovers are going to have to wait a little longer for smart, room-filling sound.

Apple announced on Friday it will delay the release of the HomePod, a smart speaker set to directly compete with the Amazon Echo, until early 2018.

“We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers," Apple wrote in an email to Mashable. "We’ll start shipping in the U.S., UK and Australia in early 2018."

Apple debuted the device in June at their Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and originally planned to release the HomePod in December of 2017. With the price tag set at $349 per speaker, that would have been quite the holiday season windfall.

What Apple claims makes the speaker really stand out from the crowd of networked home assistant speakers is its sound quality: The device sonically assesses the room it's in, and adjusts the speakers so that the sound best fills each individual space that it occupies.

Guess we'll just have to hold out a little longer to experience that first-hand, but from our brief time with the product in June, the HomePod might actually be worth the wait.