You would either need to use the 'Share' function in Apple Music and send your favorites playlist to your wife, or make it a public playlist that could be accessed by anyone with an Apple Music account.
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HomePod Can Be Used as Speakerphone, Will Support Commands From Multiple Users
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You would either need to use the 'Share' function in Apple Music and send your favorites playlist to your wife, or make it a public playlist that could be accessed by anyone with an Apple Music account.
You actually don't need to 'tell harmony to' using the newest version of the skill. It's still a clunky implementation at best, especially since it doesn't support multiple Harmony Hubs.
You can use the 'Share' function in Apple Music to do that. Whatever account is set up with the HomePod, share the playlists with that account. Or create a public playlist. So it's not automatic, but it's not that painful to do either.
Please Apple, consider to address the issue of having Watch, iPhone and..Homepod respond simultaneously when calling "Hey Siri". It's a mess. You could put yourself one step forward intelligent assistants competitors by letting a user call "Siri" whatever they want (just by providing training for the new name on each device). We could use, for example, "Hey H.A.L.", "Hey computer", "Hey Steve/Tim", "Hey Pocahontas/Totoro" (for children), "Hey Watch", "Hey bi*ch/bast*rd" (for the angry ones among us), "Hey you (...play some Pink Floyd!)", "Hey Jude (...play some Beatles!)", "Hey Joe (...play some Jimi!), "Hey Gandalf", "Hey Marvin"...and so on.
I know I know you already spent a mountain of money for marketing Siri, well that could continue to be the service name...but c'mon, give the world a little freedom again...one single name per device should be enough.
It also have the advantage to privacy that, when outside in a place with strangers, no one else could know your magic name to activate your assistant (I'd go for "Hey Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" but, wtf, now I told you).
I know I know you already spent a mountain of money for marketing Siri, well that could continue to be the service name...but c'mon, give the world a little freedom again...one single name per device should be enough.
It also have the advantage to privacy that, when outside in a place with strangers, no one else could know your magic name to activate your assistant (I'd go for "Hey Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" but, wtf, now I told you).
Hi-Fi: not a technology platform for Apple. Speaker only.
HomePod: technology platform for Apple. Includes an A8, Siri, integrates with Apple Music and Airplay etc.
It is a little mind boggling that "Hey Siri" on my iPhone and an Airplay 2 speaker is actually looking to be a better solution for Apple Music than Apples own HomePod.
Why wouldn't it be reasonable? Once you share the playlist, either privately or publicly, it's available to use through the HomePod.
Because (1) multiple people using the same Apple Music library will skew the library history and learned suggestions, (2) because Apple brought a new device that can only handle one user account to a market in which existing devices can handle multiple users, and (3) because it appears that multiple iPhones in a single family can all distinguish their owner's voices, so why not HomePod?
True, but I'm assuming that HomePod Spotify support would include a Siri API. The fact that it doesn't on the iPhone is not a dealbreaker because the phone does so many other things. A speaker that doesn't allow native voice control of the dominant music platform is kind of a dealbreaker these days. Bluetooth wasn't part of the original HomePod spec so Apple obviously added it partly because Airplay 2 wasn't ready but also partly because they wanted to offer an olive branch to Spotify, Google Play, Tidal, etc. users too.
The issue with that is if someone then proceeds to play music you personally hate using the “shared playlist” from their account, that family member is still training Siri to think your account likes that music, which defeats the point of the personalized “For You” and “Heavy Rotation” playlists Apple creates for you and updates automatically.
Can easily hotlink her playlist and it can add it to yours. It is as simple as that, Spotify is the same.
Does anyone actually use these things? I'd feel I right twerp talking to a machine like it's my best mate. I don't even use Siri because you feel bloody stupid.
Is it an English thing? Americans seem to love all this "Hey Siri, Hey Alexa" chirpyness!
Is it an English thing? Americans seem to love all this "Hey Siri, Hey Alexa" chirpyness!
Sounds lame, but a good speakerphone can be very nice to have in a work-from-home type situation.
This speaker probably isn't for me (don't use Siri much, already have good speakers with AirPlay), but if it covers a few bases, I could see it being a nice compact multi-use device for some people.
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Well sure, but that's a pretty minimal audio functionality on par with literally any speaker connected via AirPlay.
Unless you can actually control Spotify with your voice -- say "play [name of playlist]" or "play [name of song / artist]" -- HomePod can't really be said to offer Spotify support.
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Even given the high price, relative to the Sonos One, I was interested in and considering this device. Apple’s decision eliminating access to my CD purchased iTunes music though is a deal breaker given the huge investment we have made in CDs over the years. Count me out Apple.
On Friday am I able to preorder for in store pick up in Manchester as I’m in the U.K. the weekend of the 9th. How would I do this?
Well, I'm not sure this is a fair analogy. AirPods were/are actually quite price competitive compared to other bluetooth earbuds - and they addressed a problems people actually had with their headphones: wires and short-lived batteries in existing bluetooth earbuds (using the case to charge while carrying them).
What problem does HomePod solve? Lack of a digital assistant (our iPads and iPhone laying around the house or the AirPods in our ears already give us plenty of Siri access)? Need for a HomeKit hub (but Apple TVs or aforementioned iPads can already fulfill that role)?
Yes, it will no doubt have great sound and be able to shower you with music across rooms. But how many people care for that, much less perceive the lack of it as a real problem?
If at least it reduced the clutter around my TV a bit - like integrate my now pretty dated AirPort Extreme and last-generation Apple TV! Or at least let me use it as a sound bar, since my fancy TV has lousy sound! Those are actual problems people have! (first-world problems, I grant, but at least they're perceived problems!)
I predict this first generation HomePod will flop at $350. I'll wait to spend that kind of dough until it actually addresses a need.
I understand what you're saying, but at the same time you can "Dislike" anything that starts showing up in your account that you are annoyed by. It's not like you totally lose control. You could also have some ground rules for other people using the HomePod in your family in terms of not saying "Hey Siri, I like this" etc. when playing their own favorites. In my experience, the favorites you pick when you first set up your account + the "Love"/"Dislike" use has more influence than just playing music without rating it.
Speakerphone is HUGE. Amazon has flat out refused to let Echo do this (refuses to let developers access the mic). Egg on the face of the pointy haired idiot manager that nixed the capability from echo. Wanna bet Echo gets speakerphone capability within a month?
ETA: Amazon won't let Bluetooth access the mic either. Zero access.
ETA: Amazon won't let Bluetooth access the mic either. Zero access.