Apple's HomePod speaker is best enjoyed when linked to an Apple Music subscription, since this allows you to make the most of Siri's enhanced music smarts and its DJ-like role as a personal music curator, or "mixologist", as Apple calls it.
As Apple Music subscribers will know, the streaming service learns your music preferences based on what you say and play, which helps it populate the app's "For You" section with new songs that you might like, and enables Siri to generate new playlists on the fly at your request.
But what if you frequently command Siri to play music for other people in your household, such as your children? Using HomePod to play songs that don't align with your own tastes can quickly skew your Apple Music recommendations. Fortunately, you can avoid your recommendations being inundated with Encanto or Frozen tracks by disabling a simple setting. It's called "Use Listening History", and here's how to find it.
How to Disable Your HomePod's Listening History
- Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the ellipsis button (three encircled dots) in the top-right corner of the main Home screen.
- Tap Home Settings in the dropdown menu.
- Under "People," tap your name.
- Under the "Music & Podcasts" section, tap Update Listening History.
- Toggle off the switches next to the HomePod devices that you want to disable listening history updates on.
That's all there is to it. By turning off the setting, HomePod will happily continue to play songs from Apple's vast music catalog for you on behalf of others in your home, but the songs will be excluded from its personal curation algorithms and they will no longer appear in your recommendations. You can easily revert this setting by turning the switches back on in the last step.
Top Rated Comments
It also works if you say it more naturally, e.g., "Hey Siri start using listening history" or "Hey Siri stop using listening history."
Edit: You can also ask "Hey Siri are you using listening history?" or "Hey Siri is use listening history on?" and it will tell you if it's on or off.
[doublepost=1518189472][/doublepost]They totally fail to mention the downside of this workaround that turning off that setting not only prevents your Music from being affected by other users — it also prevents the system from recommending music based on what you listen to!
So because the system can’t recognize multiple users (as can similar Amazon or Google units), one is left reducing the functionality of the experience in order to safe guard it from others in the family that use it as well.
I’m a total Apple fan boy but this unit is a real fail and Apple needs to figure this out!
"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I don't know what use listening history means.
"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I found this on the web about the history of Listerine.
"Hey Siri toggle my use listening history off"
Siri: I can't find any stores that sell used Listerine near you.
"Hey Siri..."
Siri interrupts: RandyHudson, maybe you should try asking Alexa?
All ;)