WWDC 2017: Apple introduces smart compact music speaker

San Francisco, June 6 (IANS) Apple on Monday introduced a music speaker, its first hardware since Apple Watch was rolled out two years ago, at this year's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

To be "smart," the latest product in Apple's portfolio, known as HomePod, comes with a A8 microprocessor chip, the same power engine in the company's flagship iPhone smartphone and iPad tablet computer.

To be available on the market in December this year, the compact wireless speaker has some identical functions offered by similar products made by other companies, such as Amazon Echo, but promises to produce sound with higher quality, Xinhua reported.

HomePod is deemed a more expensive competitor of Echo, which was released two years ago.

Meanwhile, at a San Jose venue in Northern California, Apple's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook opened the Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, with announcement that Prime Video, a video streaming service that is operated by Amazon.com, will be integrated into Apple TV, a digital media player and microconsole.

In addition, Cook said Apple, headquartered in Cupertino, Northern California, now has 16 million registered software developers worldwide for its consumer electronics, including smartphone known as iPhone, and 3 million of them were added last year.

He claimed this year's WWDC is the largest of the kind for the technology company.

At the event, a parade of executives unveiled updates to Apple's hardware, software and mobile applications, or apps, including iMac desktop computer, MacBook laptop machine, iPad, Apple Watch, iOS software operating system and App Store.

The company said its App Store has so far paid out $70 billion to developers, of which 30 per cent was made last year.