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Maybe it’s time for a HomePod fire sale, Apple

Maybe it’s time for a HomePod fire sale, Apple

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How do you get rid of them? Sell them for what they’re worth

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holding a homepod
Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

There’s been some buzz recently about how Apple is having problems getting rid of its HomePods, with the now-discontinued Siri speakers still being on sale two months after Apple announced their discontinuation. And yet, the speakers are still $300, which is only slightly lower than their launch price of $350. Apple: it’s time to put them on sale.

Here’s an anecdote to show how hard it’s been for Apple to unload these things: I bought a HomePod the day its discontinuation was announced. An online tool tells me that it was made in October 2017, which was before Apple even started selling them in January 2018. That’s pretty rough, especially given that it’s a “space gray” one, seemingly the more popular of the two colors given that the white ones are still available from Apple’s website. The same thing also happened to tech YouTuber DetroitBORG.

It’s so in stock I could have one delivered by the time this article goes up for less than $10.
It’s so in stock I could have one delivered by the time this article goes up for less than $10.

Listen, Apple. I know that selling these things off for $200, or even $150, would pretty much be admitting defeat, but these things are still in stock two months after they were discontinued. It’s a great speaker, but at $300, it just doesn’t make sense given its complete lack of inputs that aren’t powered by Siri or AirPlay.

Fire sales always get people excited: just today, a few of my colleagues started pining for a Surface Duo after Microsoft slashed its price (even though they’ve heard all about how painful it is to use). There’s also the famous HP Touchpad, a tablet which was flatly ignored until HP took the price from $399 to $99.

I most certainly don’t need another HomePod, but if there was one last hoorah sale that made it a reasonable price, I might forget that for a moment and buy one for my office. But Apple, please: it’s obvious you didn’t care enough for this speaker while it was alive. Just do something, anything to finally close the loop. Put it on sale, “accidentally” include one with AirTag orders, whatever. Just let it go gently into that dark night, with no stock left.