HomePod Homepod Before Buying Qs

[Rich74]

Hope you can help me, sorry if these questions are all over the place, I didn't have much luck with the search.

Birthday in a weeks time, been offered the choice of one of these for a present. I have a couple of questions.

1) Currently don't subscribe to Apple Music, but don't mind subscribing. I'm a very OCD person. I have a iPod Touch which has about 8000 songs on, various playlists, hundreds of custom albums created over a many number of years. If and when I begin my sub to Apple Music, am I safe in the knowledge that it will leave all of those songs alone and not mess with the albums / songs / playlists I have created? (For info, I dont use my iPhone for any music)

2) Homekit. Is this just used to set up the Homepod?

3) 'Hey Siri' command for the Homepod. Every time I say this, is it going to set everything else with Siri off on in the same room? Phone / Mac etc at the same time?

Thanks ever so much for any help given.

 

[Shanesan]

1) Apple Music shouldn't mess with your songs *on your computer*. Someone else will have to tell me if it will mess up your Touch.

2) Yes. And update it.

3) Yes/No/Temporarily, then it will prioritize your Homepod unless you have the Apple Watch ready to take commands.

4) You can stream from your computer over Airplay, and you'll be able to say "Hey Siri, play <whatever>" and it'll grab it from Apple Music as well. Essentially with the Music sub, it'll reach out to the servers and grab your stuff (as iTunes Match is included, which uploads your music to the cloud).

 

[cyb3rdud3]

1) Not sure, there could be a risk it picks a different version with he same name/title. Best thing to do is simply not enable it on your iPod then
2) You wouldn't know it is HomeKit. Just hold you phone close to it and setup will begin.
3) Not in my experience.

But...if you only want to airplay your iPad to it and aren't interested in the rest really then surely there are plenty of alternative options available.

 

[Rich74]

Awesome! Thanks for help folks.

As for the last bit of the answer above, I wan't to use the Homepod to its potential, I was just worried about my songs in my iTunes library

 

[Rich74]

I've thought of another question.

Can you say 'Hey Siri, set an alarm for 05:00 hours' or would I have to just say 'set an alarm for x number of hours'? Like if its 11pm it would be set an alarm for 6 hours?

 

[TrueBlou]

1) As mentioned I'd avoid enabling Apple Music on your iPod Touch, it can eventually mess with the track it matches up with. But if you use iCloud Music Library with iTunes on your computer it can do the same thing, something that's happened to me and seriously peeved me off.

For instance I had (have) a few classic Billy Connolly albums I've transferred myself from vinyl. Everything was fine with them until a few months ago when they were oddly replaced with a different recording. A few other albums from various artists have had tracks get the "No longer available" message.

So I now maintain two iTunes libraries, one for Apple Music which is used on all of my iOS devices and which I don't mind if tracks are messed up slightly or go missing, I can manually fix those. And one with my own rips for my trusty old iPod, which cant use Apple Music anyway and my wife's iPod Touch.

2) No, HomeKit is for controlling devices such as lights, heating, cameras, door locks and so on. It's not used to setup the HomePod itself, it uses the same system as AirPods/Beats soI'd assume the HomePod has a W1 chip in it, which would make sense.

3) Not really, as mentioned there can be a quick flicker of activity before the HomePod decides it's the one that's being spoken to. But for the most part it's pretty transparent.

4) You just tell it the exact time you want the alarm set for, so 0500 hours is fine, as is saying 5 am.

 

[Rich74]

Brilliant thanks.

Hmm, my first question is a real sticking point then.

I'm fine not enabling Apple Music on the iPod however because of the 'cloud' and all that jazz, if I enable it on the iPhone, it's going to automatically (at some point) enable on the iPod too?

 

[TrueBlou]

Brilliant thanks.

Hmm, my first question is a real sticking point then.

I'm fine not enabling Apple Music on the iPod however because of the 'cloud' and all that jazz, if I enable it on the iPhone, it's going to automatically (at some point) enable on the iPod too?

No you’re fine there, you’d have to manually enable it on the iPod in Settings. Likewise you can completely disable it in settings.

So it’s never going to be on a device you don’t want it to be on.

 

[Rich74]

Fantastic. Thank you.

 

[Rich74]

So okay I did get one for my birthday however...

It just started playing music on its own - is this correct? I haven't signed up for anything, is this like an attract mode?

Hey Siri just wont work!! I literally have to stand over it and shout for it to pick it up but my iPhone (which I've now had to move to another room) will reply every time.

Have I been sold a defect?

 

[TrueBlou]

It shouldn’t be doing either of those. I suppose false positives, something from the TV or such activating it are possible, but I’d have thought unlikely to go the whole hog to playing music.

As for Hey Siri, my wife had issues with it, but only because she wasn’t pronouncing it properly. While it works fine for her on her phone, she has to pronounce it more, seeree, for the HomePod. Go figure.

But it is possible you’ve been unlucky and got a dud, there are going to be some. If you’re not happy, get it exchanged and see how it goes with the replacement.