Although my main machines are Apple, I have a couple of desktop Windows machines and a MS Laptop (Surface Laptop 4), so decided to try the new Apple Music app on one of my Windows 11 Pro machines (i7 11th gen, 32 GB memory, 2 TB SSD, 2 TB Disk and RTX 3090Ti) .
I was surprised to see that they included Airplay capability so that theoretically I could use Airplay to play music on HomePods and any other Airplay compatible device, however this does not work correctly:
1. It shows a stereo pair of HomePods as a two individual speakers.
2. It does not play on HomePods apart from a 1 to 2 second burst and then it says it has lost connection.
3. It will play via Airplay on a pair of Sonos ERA 300s and Sonos ERA 100s. It sees them as a stereo pair and works perfectly.
I am fascinated that Apple cannot make it work on their own products correctly. Anyone else seen this issue? Looks as if Apple do not test their stuff for Windows machines. Somewhat surprising and not really acceptable.
I also notice that Apple Music is really really slow e.g. reordering playlists by various criteria or updating info. This Windows machine is faster than my 2020 iMac and the iMac is much faster.
Not a bad effort here but not really finished and feels like a beta product. I suppose it will get there, but the inability to work with HomePods makes it a non starter for me.
I was surprised to see that they included Airplay capability so that theoretically I could use Airplay to play music on HomePods and any other Airplay compatible device, however this does not work correctly:
1. It shows a stereo pair of HomePods as a two individual speakers.
2. It does not play on HomePods apart from a 1 to 2 second burst and then it says it has lost connection.
3. It will play via Airplay on a pair of Sonos ERA 300s and Sonos ERA 100s. It sees them as a stereo pair and works perfectly.
I am fascinated that Apple cannot make it work on their own products correctly. Anyone else seen this issue? Looks as if Apple do not test their stuff for Windows machines. Somewhat surprising and not really acceptable.
I also notice that Apple Music is really really slow e.g. reordering playlists by various criteria or updating info. This Windows machine is faster than my 2020 iMac and the iMac is much faster.
Not a bad effort here but not really finished and feels like a beta product. I suppose it will get there, but the inability to work with HomePods makes it a non starter for me.