Cook continues European tour with stop in Spain to promote HomePod launch

AppleInsider

Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed a continuing European trip on Thursday, making a stop in Madrid, Spain to help promote the HomePod a day ahead of its local launch.

"La musica corre por nuestras venas," Cook posted on Twitter, a phrase translating to "Music runs through our veins." As a part of the HomePod launch the executive met with local pop star Rosalia.

La msica corre por nuestras venas. Thank you for making HomePod's launch in Spain extra special, @rosaliavt! Your new album is phenomenal. pic.twitter.com/VnJARrgV9X

-- Tim Cook (@tim_cook)

October 25, 2018

The HomePod arrives in both Spain and Mexico on Friday, a little over a month after Apple added Spanish language support via a software update. That update also brought things like Canadian French, phone calls, multiple timers, and Siri shortcut compatibility.

The HomePod is only available in a handful of countries, the others being Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. Language support has been a barrier, likely further complicated by prices starting at $349 in the U.S. Apple has been rumored as working on a cheaper smartspeaker, but nothing has materialized.

It's unknown if Cook is stopping anywhere else in Spain or the rest of Europe, but he delivered a speech against data collection at a Belgian privacy conference on Wednesday, and prior to that he made stops in France and Germany.

hentaiboy

Hola Siri

ireland

Rustic brick giving a flavour of Spanish architecture. Some of the best large and small architecture in the world.

ipilya

actually.... I have no comment!!!

ravnorodom

It’s a Cook celebrity tour. He’s loving it... the attention. 

MacPro

ireland said:

Rustic brick giving a flavour of Spanish architecture. Some of the best large and small architecture in the world.

Totally agree.  I know this was Madrid which is great but Barcelona is my favorite city in the World, be there again soon.

On HomePod I still want to know why Netflix is so much quieter than anything else I can play on the pair I have hooked up to the latest Apple Tv.

Carnage

The economic Situation in Spain is not the best for apple products right now and I suspect for a high end device like the home pod, the sales won't be that great for now.

I spend a couple of days/weeks in the richest city of the Country (Barcelona) every year and the smartphone market is dominated by "cheap" brands like Huawei, LG, Samsung. The only times I saw an X this year, it was mostly another Tourist. Just an anecdote but you clearly notice the difference compared to London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam ...

Juansicos

Carnage said:

The economic Situation in Spain is not the best for apple products right now and I suspect for a high end device like the home pod, the sales won't be that great for now.

I spend a couple of days/weeks in the richest city of the Country (Barcelona) every year and the smartphone market is dominated by "cheap" brands like Huawei, LG, Samsung. The only times I saw an X this year, it was mostly another Tourist. Just an anecdote but you clearly notice the difference compared to London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam ...

The economic situation in Spain has improved this last few years, its not like we are in 2011, unemployment rate now stands at 14% (considering that Spain's black economy is still one of the highest in the world, that number is way lower in reality). GDP PPP per capita now is comparable to those like South Korea, Italy or New Zealand and not that far from France or Japan. Obviously there are not as many iPhones as in the UK and in the US, but having an iPhone (even an X), an iPad or a Mac is quite common (and Im not surrounded by rich people by any means). Btw, Barcelona is not the richest city in the country, considering major cities, Madrid and Bilbao are richer by GDP per capita, if we consider medium sized towns, Barcelona is 16th/17th richest city in the country.