Apple's HomePod will support iTunes Match streaming via Siri

Owners of the HomePod — shipping on Feb. 9 — should be able to ask Siri to stream any files uploaded to iTunes Match, not just material hosted on Apple Music.

Match support has been affirmed by iMore's Serenity Caldwell, as well as Daring Fireball's John Gruber. Apple's official HomePod page only mentions Apple Music, which typically costs $9.99 per month.

iTunes Match is included with Apple Music but also available separately at a cost of $24.99 per year. The service lets users sync their local music with the iCloud Music Library, including imported tracks that might not be available on the iTunes Store or Apple Music.

That could make the HomePod more attractive to some early adopters. The speaker doesn't offer Siri support for third-party streaming services like Spotify or Pandora, though people will also be able to broadcast music via AirPlay or Bluetooth.

The $349 HomePod was originally due to ship in December, but was hit with a last-minute delay as Apple raced to finish development. At launch the device will still lack some promised features, such as stereo pairing and multi-room support.

49 Comments

eightzero 3141 comments · 14 Years

About 6 years ago

Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?

nottylerdurden 43 comments · 15 Years

Think of it this way. I buy a CD at lunch. I rip the album to my computer at the office and listen to it. I forget to take the CD home. I get home and I tell my HomePod to play the album that has been ripped to iTunes. The HomePod can play the album because I can access it anywhere through iTunes because I pay for iTunes match. Instead of having to also rip the cd at home.

macxpress 5902 comments · 16 Years

eightzero said:

Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?

Only with Siri yes. I don't see why you can't just use your library without paying $25 and without using Siri to play your music. Basically, just using HomePod as a AirPlay speaker and you control what song plays yourself manually on your phone. I would assume if you had a play list and started playing it, then it would just keep playing that playlist. You just wouldn't be able to ask Siri to play the song(s) or playlist(s) for you.

auxio 2760 comments · 19 Years

eightzero said:

Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?

For the $25 per year, iTunes Match lets you search and stream your personal music collection to every single Apple device you have (not just HomePod). As someone who spent a bunch of time managing and syncing my music collection to different devices over the years, I can say that $25 is a bargain for the time saved.

But if your money is more valuable than your time (or you need to support non-Apple devices), then it remains to be seen whether HomePod can find your locally shared iTunes library. My guess is that it should be able to given that the AppleTV can do it, but there may be technical hurdles to indexing and searching local music libraries using Siri.

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

auxio said:

eightzero said:

Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?

For the $25 per year, iTunes Match lets you search and stream your personal music collection to every single Apple device you have (not just HomePod). As someone who spent a bunch of time managing and syncing my music collection to different devices over the years, I can say that $25 is a bargain for the time saved.

But if your money is more valuable than your time (or you need to support non-Apple devices), then it remains to be seen whether HomePod can find your locally shared iTunes library. My guess is that it should be able to given that the AppleTV can do it, but there may be technical hurdles to indexing and searching local music libraries using Siri.

Yes it can find it, but no Siri.