It's lucky that Apple don't listen to the millions of internet commenters telling them that their products can't work.

xxx: Apple devices specific function Z won't work properly because of this and that.

yyy: so you say Apple device "can't work", you are "one of the millions"

Define "high quality".

Apple isn't in the audiophile market (a sham in itself), or in the professional audio market. It's in the consumer market.

And for the consumer market you need a reasonably good sounding speaker. Which is quite doable in the form factor they announced (hell, Sonos is quite capable of making nice-sounding speakers that are much smaller)

I say a) this is exactly what an audiophile would want, and b) HomePod very likely can't do it (simply because it is a physically small device).

Also please notice I didn't dispute that HomePod won't "sound nice". I dispute a) "high quality" and b) "beamforming" capabilities directly mentioned in the linked article.

And as a reminder, another direct quote from the article: "The engineers wanted a product that would pass muster with audiophiles."