Apple has officially discontinued the original smart speaker; no more Apple HomePods will be made, and the space gray units are already sold out at Apple Stores, although the white ones are still in stock.

The reason for this is quite simple: the less expensive HomePod mini offers "good enough" sound quality for most consumers, but at one-third the price. Shoppers seem to have voted with their wallets.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple explained that while this is the end of HomePod, the mini version has an exciting future. The company said, "The HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers great sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home controls all for just $99."

"The original HomePod will be discontinued, but will continue to be available through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last. Apple offers HomePod customers software updates and Apple Service and Support through Apple Care."

In other words, if you want to get your hands on the last HomePods Apple produced, you should be well supported for the foreseeable future, but the question is whether you need a HomePod when the HomePod mini is so great.

As we wrote in our review of the HomePod mini, it is nearly the same size as the Echo Dot, yet offers sound quality that surpasses the full-size Echo. No, it doesn't match the phenomenal sound of the original HomePod, and it loses the clever room-sensing audio beamforming technology, but most people will accept these sacrifices if they can buy three minis for the price of one full-sized HomePod.

In fact, the HomePod was even more expensive when it first launched, costing $349 before a $50 price cut made it a bit more competitive. In addition to this, buyers had to be already firmly embedded in Apple's ecosystem (they couldn't even set it up without an iOS device), which clearly limited its appeal to the masses.

Smart features were also a bit middling out of the box, but a series of updates improved the device, introducing multi-user support, individual voice recognition, and the ability to "hand off" audio from the iPhone to the speaker.

All of these features were included at the launch of the HomePod mini, making it a much more attractive package. Combine this with an attractive price, and it is no wonder that Apple is going all out for a smaller, lower-priced version.