The HomePod got short shrift at Apple’s event yesterday, which ended with barely a mention of Apple’s home speaker lineup.
While we are still waiting for a rumored HomePod mini 2 to be announced, Apple is launching a software update next week which comes with two small enhancements to the HomePod experience …
The software version 26 update includes a couple of changes that make the HomePod better at playing music, as well as making it easier to manage your WiFi network connection in Home app settings. But here’s the ‘big changes:
Apple Music Crossfade
The major addition is the ability to use Crossfade on HomePod for the first time. This means when you are playing music using Apple Music, you can setup crossfade to transition smoothly from one song to the next. The song that is ending fades out as the next song fades in, enabling seamless and continuous music playback.
After updating your software, you can enable Crossfade by opening the Home app and navigating to Home Settings -> People -> [Your Name] -> Apple Music -> Crossfade. You can customize the crossfade duration between 1 second and 12 seconds.
Unfortunately, support for Apple’s fancy new AutoMix feature is missing. Hopefully, this comes to the HomePod at a later date.
Multi-room audio improvements
The second enhancement is an expansion of HomePod’s multi-room capabilities. As a reminder, if you have more than one HomePod in your house, you can play music to multiple speakers at once. You can do this manually using the UI on the iPhone.
If you are playing directly to the HomePod using Apple Music, you can use voice commands to start multi-room sessions. For instance, if you are in the kitchen, you can say ‘Also play this in the living room’ to start playing on two speakers simultaneously, or ‘Play everywhere’ to start playback on all of the speakers in your house.
... continue reading