How to Prevent Others' HomePod Requests From Skewing Your Apple Music Recommendations

[MacRumors]

Apple's HomePod speaker is best enjoyed when linked to an Apple Music subscription, since this allows you to make the most of Siri's enhanced music smarts and its DJ-like role as a personal music curator, or "mixologist", as Apple calls it.

As Apple Music subscribers will know, the streaming service learns your music preferences based on what you say and play, which helps it populate the app's "For You" section with new songs that you might like, and enables Siri to generate new playlists on the fly at your request.

But what if you frequently command Siri to play music for other people in your household, such as your children? Using HomePod to play songs that don't align with your own tastes can quickly skew your Apple Music recommendations. Fortunately, you can avoid your recommendations being inundated with Encanto or Frozen tracks by disabling a simple setting. It's called "Use Listening History", and here's how to find it.

How to Disable Your HomePod's Listening History

1. Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad.
   Tap the ellipsis button (three encircled dots) in the top-right corner of the main Home screen.
   Tap Home Settings in the dropdown menu.
2. Under "People," tap your name.
   
   
   
   Under the "Music & Podcasts" section, tap Update Listening History.
   Toggle off the switches next to the HomePod devices that you want to disable listening history updates on.
   
   

That's all there is to it. By turning off the setting, HomePod will happily continue to play songs from Apple's vast music catalog for you on behalf of others in your home, but the songs will be excluded from its personal curation algorithms and they will no longer appear in your recommendations. You can easily revert this setting by turning the switches back on in the last step.

Article Link: How to Prevent Others' HomePod Requests From Skewing Your Apple Music Recommendations

 

[randyhudson]

So I need to take out my phone to control a voice activated speaker?

 

[Scottsoapbox]

It's too bad Apple focused all its efforts on the speaker and ignored the smart part of this smart speaker.

 

[nheilweil]

So I need to take out my phone to control a voice activated speaker?

It’s a one-time setting they are recommending.
[doublepost=1518189472][/doublepost]They totally fail to mention the downside of this workaround that turning off that setting not only prevents your Music from being affected by other users — it also prevents the system from recommending music based on what you listen to!

So because the system can’t recognize multiple users (as can similar Amazon or Google units), one is left reducing the functionality of the experience in order to safe guard it from others in the family that use it as well.

I’m a total Apple fan boy but this unit is a real fail and Apple needs to figure this out!

 

[TheColtr]

Would this also affect podcast playback? Like if I’m listening to a podcast would it not sync my play history and resume where I left off?

 

[randyhudson]

So because the system can’t recognize multiple users (as can similar Amazon or Google units), one is left reducing the functionality of the experience in order to safe guard it from others in the family that use it as well.

I’m a total Apple fan boy but this unit is a real fail and Apple needs to figure this out!

They added multiuser support to iPads, but only for schools. For everyone else, you just need to buy more iPads for your family members. Even when they've already solved the problem, there's no guarantee they will give you the solution.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So I need to take out my phone to control a voice activated speaker?

The alternative you seem to favor could accidentally start a nuclear war, shut down power in 6 states and/or initiate the HP self-destruct sequence countdown

"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I don't know what use listening history means.

"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I found this on the web about the history of Listerine.

"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I can't find any stores that sell used Listerine near you.

"Hey Siri..."
Siri interrupts: RandyHudson, maybe you should try asking Alexa?

All

 

[TwoLivesLeft]

So I need to take out my phone to control a voice activated speaker?

I just tried "Hey Siri turn use listening history off" and "Hey Siri turn use listening history on" — this works just fine. The HomePod says "I turned on/off use listening history."

It also works if you say it more naturally, e.g., "Hey Siri start using listening history" or "Hey Siri stop using listening history."

Edit: You can also ask "Hey Siri are you using listening history?" or "Hey Siri is use listening history on?" and it will tell you if it's on or off.

 

[mcdspncr]

Man this thing really needs multiuser/multiaccount support

 

[djlythium]

Having users affect your music prefs, and allowing HP to use your listening history, seem like separate processes. Apple should separate these functions.

 

[Jimmy James]

Great, so no more Raffi, but random other crap instead.

 

[cknibbs]

Man this thing really needs multiuser/multiaccount support

I have no sources and this is just my gut speaking, but I have full confidence that multi-user support is in the pipeline. First and foremost it always seems that privacy and security are the most important to Apple and that’s why up front some of the features are limited (like not being able to start a call from the HomePod) I wouldn’t be surprised if in HomeOS 2.0 or whatever they call it, that many of the requested features will be arriving, and that as developers take advantage of SiriKit that the HomePod will compete with Alexa and Google Assistant in third party support. But again, that’s just my gut feeling (or perhaps wishful thinking)

 

[Cloudkicker]

Man this thing really needs multiuser/multiaccount support

haha Not even the iPad or Mac OS has that.

I suppose if you wanted to be a jerk, you could to go to a party & tell the HomePod house's owner to play Aaron Carter a few times to skew "recommend for you". lol YouTube has "pause search history" to prevent skewing. Nice feature.

 

[sully54]

This is good to know. Glad they thought of this.

 

[adamjackson]

Every time a new Apple devices comes out, MR mucks up my RSS feed with 'how to' posts that are already covered in Apple's KBASE. They gotta make their money and page-views from people searching for these terms is one of them but I wish they could not inject them into the RSS feed so I didn't have to see it.

 

[friedmud]

haha Not even the iPad or Mac OS has that.

Ummm - OSX has had it since the beginning.

But yes: multi-user support is sorely needed for iPad, Apple TV and HomePod.

For AppleTV it would be awesome if they included TouchID in the remote!

 

[jclardy]

It's too bad Apple focused all its efforts on the speaker and ignored the smart part of this smart speaker.

Except...you can’t improve the speaker later. Software is always improving. The $99 echo will never sound like anything other than a tin can, but Siri will improve at some point in the future.

The HomePod hardware will likely be on a 2-3 year cycle.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

Except...you can’t improve the speaker later. Software is always improving. The $99 echo will never sound like anything other than a tin can, but Siri will improve at some point in the future.

The HomePod hardware will likely be on a 2-3 year cycle.

Except... most people don't care. Look at how many people use the free ear buds.

Amazon can put a better speaker on a higher priced model TOMORROW.

Siri is 6.5 years old: doubt she's any smarter in another 2-3 years.

 

[VictorTango777]

So I need to take out my phone to control a voice activated speaker?

 

[interessiert]

Now just playing beloved music is getting a big thing with requires a lot of precautious thinking and action to keep secrecy and not to be spied out - I love music, but surely not such a device like this HomePod monster
Just for some talkings to a machine - symbol of loneliness of many people - switch on illusion of a personal contact instead of switch on music and just enjoy...
By the way: the setting of the speakers isn't really performed perfectly - what's about the middle pitch?!

 

[randyhudson]

I just tried "Hey Siri turn use listening history off" and "Hey Siri turn use listening history on" — this works just fine. The HomePod says "I turned on/off use listening history.

I figured as much. Pretty sad this site can't be bothered to actually investigate the topic covered in an article.

 

[MaybesAye]

Lots of folk seem to be ignoring the fact that they've made a really good speaker, and a lot of people will buy it for the simplicity of integrating with their existing Apple ecosystem. While Siri may not be up to handling every possible request yet, that's a back end software service which can be upgraded at any point with almost no additional changes to the purchased device (maybe some remote firmware upgrades), while still offering an extremely good quality of sound. So comparing Siri with Alexa as a service is not the same as comparing the HomePod hardware with the Echo hardware, or Sonos who specialise in sound. As with every argument it depends on which ecosystem you have chosen to go with - deriding one for the other is a pointless waste of time and energy. Be happy with your life people.

 

[felixen]

The right way to implement this would be to have a master voice, and by a setting all other voices would automatically NOT affect listening history.