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Once Siri is set to play a specific channel I would anticipate you can just say ‘play’ or ‘stop’ and the device will do that with no verbal response.

It only responds to more complex commands, so you can be sure it has understood.
[doublepost=1562566069][/doublepost]Thanks Danmart - that's reassuring
 
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Any progress on this? I listen to the radio a lot and want to be able to just say to Siri ‘play radio station LBC’, or ‘play BBC Radio 2’ or ‘play Absolute Radio 90s’ or whatever to the HomePod without it requiring shortcuts or it being an ordeal.

Is this possible yet, or is it a case of waiting for iOS 13?
 
Any progress on this? I listen to the radio a lot and want to be able to just say to Siri ‘play radio station LBC’, or ‘play BBC Radio 2’ or ‘play Absolute Radio 90s’ or whatever to the HomePod without it requiring shortcuts or it being an ordeal.

Is this possible yet, or is it a case of waiting for iOS 13?

This is coming in iOS 13 so only a month or so to wait...
 
I know, but has anyone tried the betas? Does it ‘just work’ without any faffing around. Thanks.
I can confirm that BBC radio stations were pulled from the beta on 1st July. Lots of outlets were reporting on the functionality and they were subsequently turned off. I imagine the rights issues aren’t fully agreed prior to launch
 
They need to create a Siri Shortcut to go with their Sounds app

They have.

Look in Settings>Siri & Search>BBC Sounds

Here's mine:
IMG_0604.PNG
 
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I was able to create them in the shortcuts app immediately after listening via the BBC Sounds app. Looks like functionality was added 3 months ago
Thanks, I’ve just tried that and it appeared. Very interesting behaviour from the Shortcuts app!

I’ve created one and will be interested to see if it propagates to my HomePods.

ETA: so, just been experimenting. I created Sounds shortcuts for radio 2, 4 and 6 and put voice tags on them. Initially trying the voice tags on my iPhone caused the Sounds app to crash, but after a minute or two that seemed to settle down. With that working I tried from my HomePod.

The first one I tried it with said (to paraphrase) ‘turn on personal requests’. I went and tried with a HomePod in a different room, with ‘personal requests’ turned on. It worked! I was excited!

When I went back to my iPhone I noticed it has Sounds running in the background. It looked like the Siri Shortcut was starting Sounds on my iPhone and sending the output to my HomePod. I put my iPhone into Airplane Mode then tried again. The HomePod basically gave me the time-out speech which you would normally get if WiFi was down.

So, if there is just you at home, you could use this now to stream radio via your HomePod. If there are two or more people in the house and you might want to stream when the ‘active’account is out of the house I suspect you will be out of luck...

But with iOS 13 HomePod multi-user is coming so that should make this viable if a bit clunky versus streaming natively from the HomePod.
 
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I don’t have them either, must be Beta related

No, this is with 12.4
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When I went back to my iPhone I noticed it has Sounds running in the background. It looked like the Siri Shortcut was starting Sounds on my iPhone and sending the output to my HomePod. I put my iPhone into Airplane Mode then tried again. The HomePod basically gave me the time-out speech which you would normally get if WiFi was down.

Isn't this how iPhone Shortcuts works? It's not a very good way of doing things I agree. I wish the HomePod could have 'apps' (skills, shortcuts) of its own.
 
Isn't this how iPhone Shortcuts works? It's not a very good way of doing things I agree. I wish the HomePod could have 'apps' (skills, shortcuts) of its own.
Workflow (the predecessor to Shortcuts) used to run natively other places, like on the Watch. Given that Shortcuts are now Apple-owned there is no legal reason why it couldn’t be baked into the HomePod OS to allow functionality to run natively. Maybe this will happen with iOS 13?

Anyone on the beta care to check if you can build a BBC Sounds Shortcut and get it to run whilst the associated iPhone isn’t available on the local WiFi network?
 
I'm using TuneIn app on my Mac Mini and I can play everything it has via AirPlay and I am using a HomePod bought in the UK here in Thailand
 
Will be a little disappointing if it’s reliant exclusively on Tunein in the UK as BBC withdrawing from Tunein.
Out of interest has anyone experienced any problems with LBC ? Plays for a while natively but then always cuts out. Don’t have this issue with Talksport for e.g. Not tried any other stations to be honest.
However, it’s BBC 6Music that I really want to get natively !
 
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It is frustrating that the BBC has removed its radio stations from TuneIn just as they are coming to HomePod. I urge anyone who cares about this to send feedback to the BBC. I did.

 
It is frustrating that the BBC has removed its radio stations from TuneIn just as they are coming to HomePod. I urge anyone who cares about this to send feedback to the BBC. I did.

Reading this link this seems to be as much TuneIn not working with the BBC as much as the BBC just deciding to take them off the platform.
 
To the extent the BBC is right to insist on having "meaningful data" (i.e. tracking) of listeners. I would argue that providing broad access by its licence payers to its services trumps this wish by the BBC.

Its a judgment call but I think the BBC has got wrong on this occasion.
 
I suspect they can argue there are numerous ways of listening to their programs via other apps including their own or third parties which do comply so removing them from TuneIn doesnt really hurt things. It just so happens its coincided with the launch of radio via Tunein on Homepods.
 
Will be a little disappointing if it’s reliant exclusively on Tunein in the UK as BBC withdrawing from Tunein.
Out of interest has anyone experienced any problems with LBC ? Plays for a while natively but then always cuts out. Don’t have this issue with Talksport for e.g. Not tried any other stations to be honest.
However, it’s BBC 6Music that I really want to get natively !
Hi just reviewing HomePod forums and found your post. I have a similar issue with streaming LBC via Apple Music radio (which I presume is the mechanism the HomePod uses) both from my phone and HomePod. Always drops out. Have to use TuneIn instead. By contrast streaming Beats 1 from Apple Music never drops out.
 
Hi just reviewing HomePod forums and found your post. I have a similar issue with streaming LBC via Apple Music radio (which I presume is the mechanism the HomePod uses) both from my phone and HomePod. Always drops out. Have to use TuneIn instead. By contrast streaming Beats 1 from Apple Music never drops out.
Yes, seen the issue with LBC reported elsewhere now. Been like that for sometime - the issue does appear to be with LBC and possibly the whole Global group, don’t know for sure as I don’t listen to any of their other stations - only my fix of Brexit Radio (LBC).
 
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