Apple Inc. has started manufacturing its long-awaited Siri-controlled home speaker, a premium device that could focus heavily on sound quality. And it could officially launch as early as Monday at the company’s developers conference.

But it won’t ship until later in the year, according to Bloomberg, which spoke to people familiar with the matter. Apple was first rumored to be working on a home speaker back in September, when it was revealed that the company had actually been working on the device long before the launch of Amazon.com Inc.’s incredibly popular Echo.

Highly reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo further confirmed last month that Apple was one step closer to joining the smart home assistant market with a possible launch date of June. Despite bringing to market the first popular digital assistant in the form of Siri, Apple remains behind in the space. The smart home speaker market is becoming increasingly more competitive with Google Inc.’s Home and the newly launched Essential Home from Android founder Andy Rubin joining the fray. The artificial intelligence products market is growing too rapidly for Apple to ignore, said Kuo.

Inventec Corp., the Taiwan-based manufacturer of Apple’s AirPod wireless headphones, will reportedly also manufacture the Siri-enabled speaker, according to Kuo’s and Bloomberg’s sources. Apple employees have secretly been testing the new speaker at their homes for several months.

Rumored features for the Siri-controlled smart home speaker

As the Siri-controlled home speaker is rumored to have premium parts, Kuo expects Apple to pitch the device as a premium product and with that a more premium price tag. In comparison, the Amazon Echo costs $180 and the Google Home is $129.

To stand apart from the competition, the Siri speaker will focus heavily on sound quality. According to Bloomberg’s sources, the device will include “virtual surround sound technology” and “more advanced acoustics.” Apple has even considered including sensors in the device that will “measure a room’s acoustics and automatically adjust audio levels.” To compete with rivals the speaker is also “louder and reproduce sound more crisply.”

Apple’s speaker will also offer deep integration with the rest of Apple’s product lineup, including automation of appliances and lights via Apple’s HomeKit system. It is also expected to support up to 18 languages according to Kuo.  

Apple will likely open up the speaker to third parties via a software development kit. The Siri SDK was announced at WWDC last year, allowing companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and Facebook Inc. to integrate the intelligence of Siri into their own apps.

The Apple home speaker is not expected to have a screen.

The competition heats up

Ahead of the rumored launch of the Apple speaker, both Google and Amazon have been updating its own home speakers to be even more competitive.

Just in time for the rumored Siri speaker launch, Amazon Echo yesterday quietly added support for linking Alexa to your iCloud calendar.

Last month saw the launch of the new screen-equipped Echo Show. The seven-inch screen can visually summon answers to verbal questions and can display information like YouTube videos, music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts and shopping lists. The device will go on sale on June 28 for $230. The Amazon Echo also added support for free calls and messaging between Echo devices and video calls with the new Echo Show.

Not to be left behind, Google Home also added a variety of new features last month, including hands-free calling which allows users to make phone calls in the U.S. and Canada for free, but won’t be able to call other Home devices as Google felt this is an invasion of privacy. Google Home will also support proactive assistance and appointment and reminder scheduling.

New player in the market

This week also saw the launch of Essential Home, a home speaker similar to the Amazon Echo and Google Home, from Android creator Andy Rubin. Like its competitors, Essential Home is an always-listening assistant that can answer commands and questions when called upon.

The round display on the top of the device will show off the custom-built Ambient operating system, which has an open software development kit. The display will proactively show information like calendar events and traffic information, according to the company. In addition to responding to voice commands and physical input, Essential Home can also detect when you are looking at it.

Essential Home also has a strong focus on user privacy with as much data as possible being handled on the local device rather than pushing it to cloud. This is a feature that is also expected from the Siri-powered speaker.

According to Wired, Essential Home already works with Nest, Samsung SmartThings, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri and HomeKit. The device will apparently debut this summer.

Apple’s WWDC keynote presentation starts at 10 a.m. PT on Monday, June 5. You can watch the keynote on your Apple device or Windows 10 computer.

Image: iphonedigital; Flickr