It could be and answer. So far what your comments have taught me are: the HomePod hardware is too weak to host Apple Intelligence locally, but there may be a workaround by outsourcing the process to a server. In a larger scale, it would make sense for Apple to open AI servers for older devices and charge a monthly fee for it. It would likely be slower than local processing (depending on internet speeds) but it would allow AI to be available to more people, while generating a revenue and giving a preview of what you could get with a newer device that can run it locally.