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YouTube Music Integration May Be Coming to HomePod

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YouTube Music may soon be available directly on the HomePod and the HomePod mini through Siri integration, according to code hidden in the YouTube Music app that was discovered by software miner @aaronp613.

youtube music logo
There is a section in the YouTube Music app that is labeled "Connect With ‌HomePod‌," which suggests that integration could be coming at some point in the future. Apple has supported a handful of third-party music services on ‌HomePod‌ for the last couple of years, so this functionality is already available with Pandora, iHeartRadio, Deezer, and TuneIn Radio.


Music services like Spotify have not adopted this option even though Apple made the SiriKit Media feature available in iOS 14, so it remains limited in scope. With the direct play function, users can set a third-party service as a default music option, and when ‌Siri‌ on ‌HomePod‌ is asked to play content, ‌Siri‌ will play music from the selected service.

If YouTube Music does indeed add support for playing music directly on the ‌HomePod‌, it could make the streaming service more appealing to Apple users.

Top Rated Comments

HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
HobeSoundDarryl
33 months ago
One of the biggest problems with smart speakers is that it strips the owner of the speaker from direct control of what they can enjoy on them. Much like how "the cloud" puts strangers in between people and their data, smart speakers also wedge strangers in between people and full use of a very simple piece of technology. The strangers get to decide if the speaker can natively play this or that instead of the owner of the speaker.

For this and other reasons, I'm a forever fan of "dumb" speakers, which just play... anything I throw at them... with no preferences/biases/etc and no approval by for-profit strangers and/or dealmaking requirements between strangers. I have various computing devices with the "smarts" in them if I want any of that kind of control. IMO speakers and storage do NOT need gatekeepers, toll booth operators, etc.

Speaking only for myself: those happy to have new kinds of middlemen wedged in, enjoy those kinds of services. I am able to see some very select benefits... but none of them are important enough to me to let strangers become middlemen for my data or audio.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
HobeSoundDarryl
33 months ago

You can play any music thru the homepod from your phone or computer.
“Dumb” speakers have no phone or computer dependencies, no OS requirements, no connection type requirements, etc. Play from phone- iPhone or your friend's Android/Symbian/Blackberry/Windows/Harmony/Etc- or turntable or Betamax or Edison’s gramophone. Play from computer (Mac, PC, Ubuntu, BSD), or first gen iPod or Amiga output or Sony Walkman, cassette deck, Aunt Meg's SuperVHS player, CD players, reel to reel, 35mm film, Kinescope, etc.

Bring ANY device over and it will play audio on “dumb” speakers.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
3
3304614
33 months ago

the fact that spotify still doesnt support homepod is....
… intentional and deliberate. (If that is what you were hinting at with the ellipsis at the end of your sentence.)

By all indication Spotify doesn’t want to support the HomePod. Spotify very easily could support the HomePod if it wanted to. There is no technical reason why Spotify hasn’t already done so.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
Chiromac81
33 months ago
How about Spotify support??
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
klasma
33 months ago

They'll be calling it iTube soon enough!
As long as they don't call it U2be.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
D
dandyryan
33 months ago
the fact that spotify still doesnt support homepod is....
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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