HomePod HomePod - Apple Podcasts support (playing stations, speed changes, etc.)

[Felder71]

I haven't seen this covered anywhere and I'm guessing I'll have to see once it is released, but I'm curious on the support for podcasts. Will I be able to:

- Ask it to play a station from my library?
- Ask it to play at a variable speed?
- Will it keep track of played podcasts from my station?

It has access to my iCloud account so it should be able to do this. But who knows at this point. I don't want to get one for just AirPlay where I have to specifically set it up on my phone and then shoot it over to the device.

Any info as people get their devices would be great!

 

[Felder71]

Bumping this, now that it is released. We already got confirmation that you can change the podcast speed, but what about syncing podcasts that have been played already with your account, or playing a podcast station/playlist?

 

[The Game 161]

I haven't seen this covered anywhere and I'm guessing I'll have to see once it is released, but I'm curious on the support for podcasts. Will I be able to:

- Ask it to play a station from my library?
- Ask it to play at a variable speed?
- Will it keep track of played podcasts from my station?

It has access to my iCloud account so it should be able to do this. But who knows at this point. I don't want to get one for just AirPlay where I have to specifically set it up on my phone and then shoot it over to the device.

Any info as people get their devices would be great!

You can use hey siri to play the podcast in your library yes and when you stop it and you say- "play my podcast" it will carry on where you left off.

 

[actcyclist]

I had some problems playing podcasts via the HomePod yesterday. I asked it to play a particular podcast, it repeated the podcast name but then played a completely different podcast.

It seems to default to playing what's in the podcast widget on the iPhone; which seems to be random.

I usually don't use the iOS podcast app so after a day of using it, I got sick of how bad it is and switching back to using Pocketcasts and I'll just use airplay.

 

[The Game 161]

I had some problems playing podcasts via the HomePod yesterday. I asked it to play a particular podcast, it repeated the podcast name but then played a completely different podcast.

It seems to default to playing what's in the podcast widget on the iPhone; which seems to be random.

I usually don't use the iOS podcast app so after a day of using it, I got sick of how bad it is and switching back to using Pocketcasts and I'll just use airplay.

Yeah the apple podcast app is embarrassing and just freezes for me so I would only use it via hey siri and it seems to work ok for some but yes I know what you mean.

Just using airplay with pocketcasts might be the better option.

Not tried it yet though if you can play next podcast if it will go to your next one on pocketcasts though. Will try it tomorrow maybe

 

[actcyclist]

Yeah the apple podcast app is embarrassing and

It's a pity because Apple had a very good iOS Podcast app about iOS 8/9 but they ruined it.

 

[The Game 161]

It's a pity because Apple had a very good iOS Podcast app about iOS 8/9 but they ruined it.

I wouldn't mind it but with how it freezes when launching it's become rather unusable. It's on the iphone.

So using hey siri for podcasts is fine but using the app is a pain.

 

[mysteryman]

Am I correct in saying the HomePod syncs with the Apple podcast app on iPhone? I can ask HomePod to continue playing where I left off on my phone and vice versa?

 

[Wolfpup]

Am I correct in saying the HomePod syncs with the Apple podcast app on iPhone? I can ask HomePod to continue playing where I left off on my phone and vice versa?

This is what I want to know too.

This would be super useful if the HomePod is just connecting to a specific iOS or iTunes device/pc and playing podcasts off of it, including recording playback position. But that sounds too good to be true, and I’m worried all it does is play tuff off the internet, which would be worthless to me.

 

[Shanghaichica]

This is what I want to know too.

This would be super useful if the HomePod is just connecting to a specific iOS or iTunes device/pc and playing podcasts off of it, including recording playback position. But that sounds too good to be true, and I’m worried all it does is play tuff off the internet, which would be worthless to me.

It does sync up with yjr podcast app. You don’t even need to say continue playing. You just say play podcast X and it will just continue playing where you left off on another device.

 

[Wolfpup]

It does sync up with yjr podcast app. You don’t even need to say continue playing. You just say play podcast X and it will just continue playing where you left off on another device.

Thanks, but it's not syncing with/playing audio off of iTunes or an iOS device, right? If it's just doing it off "the cloud" it won't help me :-/

 

[Shanghaichica]

Thanks, but it's not syncing with/playing audio off of iTunes or an iOS device, right? If it's just doing it off "the cloud" it won't help me :-/

Well if I start listening to a podcast on my iPhone or iPad and later on I say to my HomePod play podcast X. It will start up in exactly the same place as I stopped listening on the other device.

 

[JBaby]

Well if I start listening to a podcast on my iPhone or iPad and later on I say to my HomePod play podcast X. It will start up in exactly the same place as I stopped listening on the other device.

This is exactly how it works for me too. And while an episode is playing I say speed up and it does. To make things easier I have all my podcasts in various stations. But asking for an individual podcast works too. But it can get tricky if there are a lot of podcasts with the same name.