Another Apple launch event has come and gone with no announcement of a Dolby Atmos soundbar. It's not that such a thing was rumoured ahead of the launch, because it wasn't – it's that it seems such an obvious product for the company to produce that I'm baffled each time an Apple soundbar isn't announced.
The company already has all of the ingredients. Combine an Apple TV 4K with two HomePod 2s, and you've got a setup that performs much like a soundbar – and a smart one at that – but the form factor is less convenient and many people are put off by the need to buy and set up three separate components.
I used this setup at home instead of a soundbar for a few months last year, and it worked really well, but finding a suitable place for each of the speakers was far trickier than it would have been for a soundbar, especially as HomePods aren't really designed for wall-mounting.
So why doesn't Apple build the superb Dolby Atmos performance of a pair of HomePod 2s into the design of a soundbar, while also including all of the streaming capabilities and the HDMI eARC functionality of the Apple TV 4K? To me, that sounds like the ideal soundbar and something akin to a no-brainer for Apple, but other than a very vague patent unearthed by AppleInsider in April this year, the once-trickling rumours of an Apple soundbar have pretty much dried up.
While I appreciate that Dolby Atmos music has its value, the sound format is far better suited to movies, and Apple isn't making it easy to properly enjoy Dolby Atmos movies through its products. I really hope that changes sometime soon.
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