HomePod Now Shipping in Canada, France and Germany
Apple HomePod is now shipping in Canada, France and Germany just about a year after the product was first announced and four months after it first became available in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Pricing in France and Germany is set at €349. That is equivalent to about US$405. HomePod’s retail price in the U.S. is US$349 so the device is selling at a premium in France and Germany.
HomePod Canada is English-only for Now
Pricing for Canada is C$449 which is is about US$10 less than the U.S. model. Also, HomePod in Canada today is only shipping with English language support. A note on the Apple.com/ca website says that French language support will come later this year despite the fact that it is already supported in France. The English-only rollout highlights that having language recognition is not sufficient. The automated speech recognition (ASR) must be adjusted country-by-country to support language variations and the natural language understanding (NLU) must be tuned to account for cultural differences.
When Amazon Echo went on sale in France earlier this month, a company spokesperson said Canadian users could set French as their default language but the device would be localized to France. The same is likely true of the HomePod as you can set your preferred language. Below is the current country and language localization availability of smart speakers from Amazon, Apple and Google.
| Country | Amazon Echo | Google Home | Apple HomePod |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 2018 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Canada | 2017 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Denmark | TBD 2018 | ||
| France | 2018 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Germany | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| India | 2017 | 2018 | |
| Ireland | 2018 | ||
| Italy | 2018 | ||
| Japan | 2017 | 2017 | |
| Korea | TBD 2018 | ||
| Mexico | TBD 2018 | ||
| Netherlands | TBD 2018 | ||
| New Zealand | 2018 | ||
| Norway | TBD 2018 | ||
| Singapore | 2018 | ||
| Spain | TBD 2018 | ||
| Sweden | TBD 2018 | ||
| United Kingdom | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| United States | 2014 | 2016 | 2018 |
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