ive been Mac/Apple devotee for years. I want to buy HomePod but want to be sure it will play my entire iTunes library as is the case with my other Apple devices. Spent hours uploading my store bought CD’s years ago. This is critical in my decision.
I should be receiving my HomePods on the 9th so I'll know for sure, and I will post here as well at that time, but for now I'm expecting these to work perfectly well with iTunes.
Apple has actually made some updates to the specs for HomePod, and for example they're now stating:
Audio Sources
Noting that they include Mac in the list above, I'm confident that HomePod will can be used as a speaker to play anything on my Mac including my iTunes library.
I've received my HomePod(s) now and begun to listen to music - I can say conclusively that they play anything I want to select from my own personal iTunes library. The HomePods were immediately available as AirPlay speaker choices on the iTunes menu, and I can select one or more speakers (HomePod, computer, other, in any combination one or more) to play my music.
For me, this is exactly what i was hoping for - I can now put speakers throughout my home and direct my iTunes library music to them.
The Siri control is not as complete as it will be for Apple Music. You can only control the music from your computer, as far as selecting the music to be played, and at each HomePod you can individually control volume, and you can also pause the music and go back or ahead track by track from the HomePods. So there is that degree of control but it is not Siri controlled.
One thing about Siri, as others have reported, it is uncanny that you can say 'Hey Siri' at very low volume, even with the music playing very loudly, and Siri will pause the music and wait for a request. That is quite impressive.
As far as I can tell the device works independently of your computer which means that anything you want to play needs to be part of iCloud. In other words, you need Apple Music, this isn't streaming your computer's iTunes collection. I am guessing to the extent that your iTunes collection would be Matched in iCloud your other tracks would be included but as is common with Apple's information pages, it lacks in the details and targets everything to promoting other elements of Apple's ecosystem while carefully omitting mention of limitations. 😐 That said, I am wondering why the tech. spec. page makes mention of all the file formats supported, particularly FLAC for which Apple has notoriously been omitting support for well over a decade. If music is only supported as Apple Music and all that is pre-defined as 256k AAC then why mention other format support? As I said, there's a log of vagaries.
I think the HomePod is meant to be a stand-alone device, not an extension of a computer. If you want that you can probably get wireless speakers or something. The HomePod could be used by somebody who has no computer at all and who knows what direction we are heading? Clearly it is not meant to be suitable for everybody but Apple has always found niches that it then successfully develops. Sure there are people with CD collections, but in 10 years 8 year old kids will be wondering what a CD is.
People keep on invoking Steve Jobs here but he was definitely on the innovate new side of things, not somebody who said, "Make sure we continue to support yesterday's technology." He was also one who basically said, here's something new and people will like it; no choice. Then thing is, they did; at least the young ones who are the ones coming into disposable income to boost the profit line.
In over 10 years of posting here there is no indication Apple reads these forums to garner opinion on its new products. Send feedback with the link below but also realize I have been reading posts like this for almost 20 years on this site and have yet to see Apple suddenly decide that they will bring back optical drives in its computers, or make them user-repairable, or bring back floppy drives, or return dozens of features that have been removed from applications that people have bemoaned.
Limnos wrote:
As far as I can tell the device works independently of your computer which means that anything you want to play needs to be part of iCloud. In other words, you need Apple Music, this isn't streaming your computer's iTunes collection.
I'm not so sure about that, Note #1 on the bottom of the Tech Specs page says:
Peer-to-peer AirPlay requires a Mac (2012 or later) with OS X Yosemite or later, or an iOS device (late 2012 or later) with iOS 8 or later.
This would seem to imply that HomePod may be able to serve as an AirPlay target from a Mac or iOS device. Otherwise, what would these devices have to do with peer-to-peer AirPlay (between HomePods)? The only alternative explanation I can think of is that this means that these devices are required to establish a HomePod-to-HomePod connection? I guess we'll all find out soon enough ...
tony.d. wrote:
This is my point exactly. The specs show nothing on Mac support. But there was an iTunes update. The specs also show support for Apple Lossless and FLAC. So how could this device play these files if not from a computer running iTunes. iTunes Match doesn’t (at least I don’t think it does) uploads Lossless files. Just gonna have to wait this one out and let the Tech reviews sort it out.
That's what's odd. iTunes has never supported FLAC, so unless there's a really new version of iTunes coming out in the next few days...
Okay, reading the Homepod tech specs page it says under wireless connectivity there is "direct guest access" which is completely unhelpful but refers you to faint gray, tiny print at the very bottom of the page which mentions Airplay.
"Peer-to-peer AirPlay requires a Mac (2012 or later) with OS X Yosemite or later, or an iOS device (late 2012 or later) with iOS 8 or later."
Apple's Airplay page says:
Use AirPlay to stream content from iTunes on your computer - https://support.apple.com/HT202809 - "With AirPlay, you can stream music, photos, and videos from iTunes to your Apple TV. Or, stream music from iTunes to your AirPort Express or AirPlay-enabled speakers."
HomePod - Technical Specifications - Apple
Make of that what you will. If that means you can stream from iTunes then it's a strange way of hiding what may be a major feature of the devices for many people.
You are probably right in that the music must be part of the cloud although I am holding out hope that my own iTunes collection can be accessed independently through WiFi. The Google Home device allowed me to upload my entire library to their cloud and now that the free subscription period is expired, the google device can only play my personal library and some generic radio stations. That is sufficient for me in that my iTunes library contains nearly 5000 songs that I purchased on CD, and only a few hundred purchased from iTunes Store. So Apple HomePod will be useless to me after all these years of following Apple protocol with building an iTunes library with CD’s that my iPhones and iPads and iMac can all share and play currently. It seems as if the HomePod will be doomed to failure no matter how good it sounds, if it can’t even match the basic capabilities of google and other competitors, including its own line of devices. Why the switch in approach with Homepod? I guess to force all customers into a monthly fee to purchase Apple Music Play or whatever it’s called. Too bad. It sounds like a great sounding music machine but it’s flawed in its design if it can’t play iTunes music that customers own in their own libraries or music from competing sources as Alexa and Google Home can do. The innovative possibilities have been ignored and will result in abject failure of this device unless a course correction is made ASAP.
I’m in the same boat. Really like the idea of the HomePod but if I can’t use my library, which is 90% ripped CDs, then this won’t work for me. I feel Apple is leaving behind those of us that still use a Mac. There’s no mention of the Mac for system requirements on the HomePod page (although they did release a new version of iTunes). Sad really.
I feel Apple is leaving behind those of us that still use a Mac.
Wouldn't surprise me. Mobile devices are increasingly popular (you can check online statistics on how much mobile devices comprise Apple's sales) and as powerful as computers were only a few years ago. It used to be you had to have a computer to support your device but with all the steps Apple has taken in the past year or so to make everything wireless and re-downloadable, and sometimes only in iCloud it is really making a mobile device more independent. Except for the tiny keyboards and kind of small screens I bet 90% of what people need a computer for could be done on an iPhone. The only thing I think you really need the computer for with an i-device is because Apple cannot guarantee 100% that anything you buy will be available down the road for re-download (something they bury in tiny print in disclaimers because it may scare people). The HomePod is just an aspect of this. Everybody is getting into high speed wi-fi and cloud storage, streaming vs. radio broadcast, etc. Many people don't want CD collections anymore, just digital copies. Maybe if your music tastes change a lot (not me) something like Apple Music is better than purchasing tracks.
I hope somebody at Apple reads this thread. My iTunes collection is probably 90% burned store bought CD’s done on my Macs over the years, and maybe 10% purchases from iTunes. Right now, my iMac, my iphone, both of my iPads, AND my Google Home device can play all of my iTunes library without any subscription. Google made it difficult, but they allow a person to upload up to 50,000 songs to their cloud, free of charge and then Google Home can play lists from that upload iTunes library, albeit, somewhat cumbersome. Now Apple releases a $349 device that can‘t do what their iMac, iPhone, and iPad can already do, and it can’t even do what one of their main competitors can do with iTunes. What were they thinking? Here I am ready to fork out $349 to buy the HomePod but it has been designed to be less capable than any other Apple device except for maybe the Apple IIe. I have one of those as well. I want to buy a Homepad even though I already have a super fine Google Home device which I am willing to abandon, but Apple designed a machine that is the best sounding device of its kind, it just can’t do almost anything it’s other devices can already do,, nor can it do most of what the competition can already do. Please fix this Apple. I want to give you my money but HomePod can’t play my iTunes library without a monthly subscription. This would not be happening if Steve Jobs were still around. Apple, please come to your senses and fix this ASAP.
Yes, as I observed earlier the website talking about the features seems to have strange statements such as support for FLAC (which Apple has never supported) and all sort of other formats which are not part of the Apple Music or even iTunes system. Being familiar with Apple's web pages you learn to analyze it word for word with a legalistic perspective. It's one of those things where I don't get my what-nots in a twist and feel I have to be the first one on my block to buy it. 🙂 I'll wait for others to do that, then site back and read reports for a few weeks.
This is my point exactly. The specs show nothing on Mac support. But there was an iTunes update. The specs also show support for Apple Lossless and FLAC. So how could this device play these files if not from a computer running iTunes. iTunes Match doesn’t (at least I don’t think it does) uploads Lossless files. Just gonna have to wait this one out and let the Tech reviews sort it out.
I get the whole thing about CDs. But a lot of us ripped CDs to digital files, some at Lossless Bit rates. So we have huge collections already on our hard drives that now seem forgotten. I don’t subscribe to Apple Music or any other service because I already have the music I want to listen too. All I’m asking for is for it to be used as an Airplay speaker with Siri support.
Adding my voice to the others here who consider this critical - my iTunes library is my source of music, I'm not particularly interested in subscribing to Apple Music and it doesn't have the same music that I own myself.
I noticed the same thing in reading the HomePod specs - why would they list all of those formats if the only purpose of HomePod was to stream Apple Music? And yet nothing on the Apple site (at the moment) really addresses this clearly.
I ordered two HomePod units today, before I realized this was uncertain. I'm now hoping that I can be more certain about this before I feel the need to cancel my order.
From the article:
I want to reiterate, because I've seen a number of people passing around conflicting information: You can stream any audio (including anything from your iTunes library on your Mac) to HomePod
via the original AirPlay protocol.
When AirPlay 2 launches, you'll be able to stream that audio to multipleAirPlay-compatible speakers, but the AirPlay 2 protocol is not required to stream audio from your Mac or other sources.
Homepod
