audioOS 18
The HomePod Software 18 adds the option to choose a Home Hub rather than having HomeKit select one automatically, a useful feature for people with multiple HomePods and Apple TV models.
There is a new SharePlay feature, allowing multiple people to share control of what’s playing on a HomePod through Apple Music. To use the feature, bring an iPhone close to another iPhone to add songs to a playlist and control playback.
AirPlay now supports Spatial Audio, providing an immersive audio experience with Dolby Atmos when using AirPlay to stream audio from an iPhone or iPad to the HomePod.
Siri control seems to be completely broken. As before, it claims to be unable to find a large number of my albums previously purchased from iTunes. After updating to audioOS 18, it said that the first five in a row that I tried were not available. Then I tried two more recent purchases, which had worked with audioOS 17, and it confirmed that it was going to play the album I had requested but actually played a completely different album.
Previously:
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Best thing to do with these is pair them and stick them right by your ears. Stereo does sound good. But Siri is useless.
Not too surprising. Triggering playlists via Siri has been broken on iOS and iPadOS since 17.5. This leaves users with older hardware in the lurch since iOS 17 is unlikely to see another update, and iOS 18 dropped support for a lot of older hardware.
17.7 doesn't fix the problem, and my attempt to make a shortcut to trigger playlists failed as well. Aaargh.
Maybe they'll find a way to make the Homepod Mini not sound like it's playing music behind a wet sock.
