Apple Inc. is finally bringing its delayed HomePod smart speaker to market, announcing today that it will be available starting Feb. 9, with preorders opening Friday.

The $349 speaker, a competitor to Google LLC’s Home and Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo, was announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June with a promised delivery date of December. The smart speaker, which was pitched as being a superior offering to its competitors, combines both a solid sound system and a powerful smart device.

All of them rely heavily on machine learning technology to enable them to answer questions and learn people’s preferences over time. They’re also driven by the companies’ realization that these devices could become a new platform akin to the personal computer and the smartphone, potentially becoming a prime way to search, shop, consume media and control a wide variety of other devices in the home.

The HomePod’s specs include an array of seven beam-forming tweeters combined with a custom-designed four-inch woofer, which apparently allows users to “rock the house” as opposed to setting up Twitter bots. In addition, the speaker was claimed to be able to sense the size of the room it is in, and through spatial awareness adjust audio to suit the environment.

Apple didn’t spend much time focusing on the smart aspects of the speaker when it was announced, but it changed its tune with its announcement today, mentioning its digital assistant Siri 23 times in its press release.

“We’re so excited for people to get HomePod into their homes, apartments and businesses to hear it for themselves,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. “We think they will be blown away by the audio quality. The team has worked to give Siri a deeper knowledge of music so that you can ask to play virtually anything from your personal favorites to the latest chart-topping releases, simply by saying ‘Hey Siri.’”

After a strong focus on the media abilities and Siri’s role with them, Apple does note that the HomePod comes with full support for Apple’s HomeKit platform. That means it can control compatible smart home devices connected on a network. Using SiriKit, users also can obtain access to third-party apps via the speaker.

Only three countries will have access to the HomePod from Feb. 9: the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The smart speaker will later be launched in France and German during the northern spring.

Photo: Apple