Oh! Radio stations!

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Level 1

49 points

Oh! Radio stations!

The one thing that I always wanted my HomePod to do was to be able to play radio stations without the need to stream via AirPlay from my MBP or iPhone.

I listen to Absolute Radio, and noticed this week that they have changed one of their jingles from "Ask your Google Hub or Alexa to play Absolute Radio" to "Ask your smart speaker" ... so I said "Hey Siri, play Absolute Radio" and guess what ... it did!!!

I also got it to play Capital and Heart radio, but not any of the BBC stations, nor talkSPORT or LBC. But it's a start .... :)

Posted on Jan 18, 2019 1:09 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

272,743 points

Jan 19, 2019 5:02 AM in response to Tractorgirl

Progress, but there is no good technical reason why HomePod couldn't be able to play any Internet radio station. Of course that might reduce the need to use Apple Music's own radio stations, so I can see why Apple aren't rushing to provide a way to create custom Internet Radio stations. 😕

tt2

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Answer 2

Twitchly

Level 1

52 points

Feb 3, 2019 9:39 PM in response to Tractorgirl

In the meantime, there’s the app Radio Shorties. It allows you to verbally tell Siri to play a vast number of radio stations, including the BBC variants. I use it to play my favorite radio stations on HomePod. (And to discover new stations.) But I think it’s still using AirPay off your phone or iPad; you just don’t have to physically use the phone to do it.

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Answer 3

Tractorgirl Author

Level 1

49 points

Feb 4, 2019 2:24 AM in response to Twitchly

Thanks for the reply Twitchy. I got the Radio Shorties app but it wants £7.50 a year to use it. I'll stick to getting the stations on my iPhone which aren't available on their own on the HomePod and AirStreaming them to it.

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