William Gallagher
The HomePod 13.2 update included with iOS 13.2 adds the ability for HomePod to recognize different voices, play high-quality ambient soundtracks, and handoff music, podcasts or calls from iPhone.
Apple has released the new 13.2 update for HomePods, bringing much-awaited iOS 13 functionality to the smart speaker. Chief among the new features are ones to do with making HomePods work more seamlessly with iPhones and within families.
HomePods can now differentiate between the voices of the members of your family. This lets the speaker offer each person a personalized experience, such as the correct New, Chill and Favorites music mixes in Apple Music.
When 13.2 is installed, users can bring their iPhone close to the HomePod and hand off music to it. Music, podcast or even phone calls on the iPhone will immediately be passed to the HomePod where users can continue listening or speaking.
The new 13.2 release also lets users add music to HomeKit scenes for the first time, and can play high-quality Ambient Sounds too.
It's now also possible to set a sleep timer, so that when listening to music or the new Ambient Sounds, the HomePod will stop playing off after a specified time.
HomePod updates are done automatically via the Home app on iPhone. If the automatic update is switched off, updates can be done manually by tapping on the house icon at the top right of the screen, then scrolling to Software Update.
Update: Apple has retracted the update after reports of bricked devices.
Amber Neely
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
26 Comments
Can't wait to start playing with this.
Until Apple gets AirPlay 2 to work properly with a stereo pair of HomePods, they will continue to be one of the worst products ever released by Apple. iTunes loses its connection to the Homepods and frequently the HomePods can no longer find the Internet without power recycling them. And they still work only with iTunes. Right. Stereo HomePods can't play YouTube videos. $700 speakers that only work with a single program. I wish I could return them.
I've been looking forward to this release. Multi-user support will be welcomed in our house and I'll definitely be using HandOff for phone calls quite a bit.
My HomePod stereo pair works great with AirPlay 2 from iTunes, my iPhone and my iPad. I even AirPlay from them to an AirPort Express simultaneously with no issues.
Only with iTunes? I AirPlay audio from videos that aren't in iTunes all the time, including YouTube, so I don't know what you're talking about.
Wasn't it Steve Jobs that said something along the lines of they still do what they did when you bought them? I guess you should have returned them a long time ago.
Be careful with this update. It just bricked my HomePod and I'm in the process of getting help from Apple.
After I updated, I couldn't get Siri to work at all (even after a power cycle) so I tried removing my HomePod using the Home app and then adding it again. Unfortunately, none of my iOS devices can even detect it anymore. Tried a tap and hold to reset it, but that doesn't seem to work either.