https://qz.com/1200255/apple-aapl-homepod-reviews-its-the-modern-day-bose-wave-radio/

Reviews of Apple’s latest gadget, the $350 HomePod music player, dropped today (Feb. 6). The smart speaker is due to ship to customers Feb. 9, and it seems that the initial takes were generally pretty mixed. While many reviewers agreed that the HomePod’s sound quality was better than most of its competitors, few saw the Siri integrations making the speaker much more useful than just buying a nice speaker and using your iPhone.

One line in Nilay Patel’s review for The Verge stood out to me. Apple reportedly told him that it holds around 200 patents for various parts of the HomePod, and that the company banged out about its superior “beamforming” technology for shaping the way sound is emitted from the device to fill a room of any size.