Although it is true that Apple took a while to launch its own Bluetooth speaker on the market, at a time when the wide family of Amazon Echo speakers or those developed by Google had been in stores for quite some time, it finally saw the light on February 9, 2018, although it could not be purchased in an official store until October 26 of that same year.
It was the HomePod , Apple’s smart speaker , with a curious cylinder shape less than 43 centimeters high, with a simple but pleasant design (to which the company is usually accustomed), and that not only fills a room with sound, it can also turn it into a complete soundstage.
Although it was not until November 16 of this year when its smaller version, baptized with the name of HomePod Mini , which is characterized by being just as intelligent but more compact, ideal for enjoying sound and listening to Siri, arrived in stores. throughout the room, thanks to its acoustic waveguide, capable of generating 360-degree surround sound, clear frequencies and deep bass.
Whether you already have one, or if you recently bought it (or given it away), you may have some interest in using it in conjunction with Apple Music . And it is that, after all, it is basically what Apple developed the HomePod for; in addition to, of course, the HomeKit controls, and being able to play our favorite music on a compact speaker (something we can also do with other options, such as Tidal or Spotify).
How can we play music on our HomePod or HomePod mini?
The configuration process of these two smart speakers developed by Apple is characterized by being quite straightforward and simple. So much so that we can easily pair our iPhone when we initially configure them . Once this is done, the HomePod will be able to access the Apple Music library, directly from the cloud, and will have the possibility to search for music, add playlists or add new songs, among other interesting functions.
In fact, all we have to do is pair the iPhone or iPad with the HomePod . Once we do, we can simply say “Hey Siri, put some music on,” so that Siri will simply start playing the songs it finds in our Apple Music library.
You can also ask it to play jazz music from your Apple Music library repository, for which you must say “Hey Siri, play jazz music from my library.” And if you want to ask him to play the best of a particular group, you can say “Hey Siri, play some Jan Garbarek.”
Obviously, it is also feasible to ask for specific songs or albums , or even change the order by asking for them to be played at random.
How to manage Apple Music with the HomePod
Managing the Apple Music app directly from HomePod is extremely straightforward and simple, since most functions can be carried out and requested directly by just talking to Siri.
For example, if we tell Siri that we like certain songs, or that we want to add certain artists to playlists, we can change the way Apple Music broadcasts not just playlists, but radio stations. Here are some of the things you can do:
- If we want Siri to take note of what we like, and take it into account for future recommendations, we must say “Hey Siri, I like this.”
- If we want Siri to add songs and artists to our playlists, and also take them into account for future recommendations, we must say “Hey Siri, add this to my party playlist.”
- If, on the other hand, we want the system not to reproduce something in particular, we must say “Hey Siri, I don’t like this artist”, and it will not reproduce it again.
- But if it happens the other way around, and we love a certain randomly played song, we can say “Hey Siri, I like songs like this,” and it will update our radio stations accordingly.
As we can see, the use is quite simple, although it is necessary to take into account something fundamental: Siri will learn our tastes and make recommendations based on it little by little, over time, so we just have to have some patience and start doing some tests.
