Hi everyone,

Before we get news from today’s Apple Experience…
Since OS27 my HomePods (OG, Minis) read their answers double.

Sometimes it interrupts the first response and starts over. Sometimes it reads the line two full times.
Does anyone else experience this?

Thanks and have an exciting day!

Looking for some advice. Have an original Sonos Beam as a bedroom soundbar. Works fine, but increasingly am having CEC issues with it turning on, etc. Almost wondering if stereo paid HomePod minis would just be simply because I have an AppleTV and they can directly connect to that. Any thoughts? Anyone use this setup? Thanks.

As the title says i bought two homepods to use as a stereo setup whats ur guys opinions on it ?

So I was just laughing at myself and I just thought I’d share this. I listen to Apple Music every day all day, and I work from home. I play Apple Music in the background, Three days ago I started playing my favorite Favorites playlist, and did the auto mix, and auto continue. I absolutely lost my mind when about 10 songs it was perfectly mixed and flawless. it been working like a charm playing all on the HomePods that I selected and not playing on the ones that I didn’t select.( this happens a lot) so instead of just ending the music I pause it and this continue it the next day. I’m afraid if I end it and start again it will go back to be buggy also I have not let Siri near this Mix.

Edited due to incompetence.

So, for example, I’ll hold down the Siri button and say “Intercom the kitchen,” then Siri will say “Go ahead,” then I’ll say my message. Instead of announcing the message the “Go ahead” prompt just hangs out at the top of my iPhone screen. The only way I can get the intercom to work is to go to the Home app and press the intercom button at the top, but this intercoms all the iPods in the house.

Edit: meant to say HomePods (not iPods) in the last sentence.

It seems like i can essentially create my lights and homepod to do the same thing either way? am i mistaken or stupid please help LOL

All the HomePod Owners who have added a Sub-Woofer to the set up using the Airport Express or the Belkin SoundForm Connect Audio Adapter with AirPlay 2 can you recommend a Mini Sub-Woofer which works well whit this et up ? which can be easily added to the mix and be played via Airplay ?

Since the new update, my Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen disconnected w the HomePods and it disconnected with my Phone. I resetted them even with connecting a MacBook, nothing. I split my wifis network to specific 2.4ghz and 6ghz and my Apple TV connects to the wifi or else it won’t work. My HomePod mini’s would work while setting up but will be stuck at the adding to Apple account page and ultimately fail to setup. Can someone help me pls

‪ I kinda stopped following tech during the time when HomePods (& minis) were first introduced until I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max in Sept 2023, so I’m not that familiar with them since they haven’t been updated much or talked about since they were released. Never had a HomePod/HomePod mini before. But I may be interested in the new HomePod Mini 2 rumored to be announced this week. Are they truly worth it over a basic Alexa?‬ I use a UE Megaboom 3 (wireless bluetooth speaker) to listen to music in my living room and while I shower I bring it to the bathroom. I would love some thoughts, opinions, tips, and tricks about why you love your HomePod over an Alexa.

i’m looking to get something that can sit in an open concept room basically would play podcasts, audio books, stuff like hymns perhaps, not for loud music. seems like it would be nice to work with airplay.

homepod regular or mini good for this?

I've been investigating whether the original 2018 HomePod could technically support Apple's upcoming 4-speaker surround feature.

I compared the firmware of both HomePod generations running exactly the same build: audioOS 27.2 beta 3 (24K5103f).

Here’s what I found:

• The HomePod 2 firmware contains 17 configurations referencing the four surround roles: quad_frontleft, quad_frontright, quad_rearleft, and quad_rearright.
• The HomePod 1 configuration contains 69 entries, but only for solo and stereo playback. No quad profiles were found.
• Both generations contain spatial audio components, including AUSpatialMixerV2, immersive audio processing, and surround filters in libAudioDSP.
• Both contain multi-speaker synchronization infrastructure, including AirPlay functionality that checks RTAPATAudioFeatureSupported.
• No explicit hardware restriction or direct rejection of first-generation HomePods was identified in the functions examined.

The quad configurations reference AID12001, associated with the HomePod 2 configuration package, and AID12007, which remains unidentified.

So here's the interesting part.

The original HomePod already contains several important components relevant to spatial audio and multi-speaker synchronization.

However, its firmware currently lacks the acoustic profiles required for the new four-speaker configuration.

Does that mean the original HomePod is technically incapable of supporting surround sound? Not necessarily.

Could Apple theoretically add the missing support in a future update? Possibly, but we haven't established that the shared components are sufficient.

There may also be restrictions elsewhere, particularly in tvOS or HomeKit.

I've published the complete technical evidence here:

https://paste.rs/1OFsu

It includes the 17 quad configuration entries, the first-generation role index, firmware provenance, SHA-256 hashes, targeted disassembly excerpts, and a verification script.

This is preliminary static analysis, not a working surround implementation.

I'd love to hear from anyone familiar with audioOS internals or Apple's AirPlay architecture.

Has anyone found a definitive technical reason why the original HomePod couldn't support four-speaker surround?

And if you'd like Apple to consider supporting the original HomePods, please submit feedback:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/homepod/

These speakers are still incredible eight years later. It would be amazing to give them a new life with proper surround support.

I just spent most of the day trying to get my Home Pod 2nd gen to connect to and play my itunes music. When i bought it a few months ago, my home pod set up pretty fast. The icon showed up in my PC ITunes and played music upstairs beautifully. A week ago it stopped playing; the icon is still in my ITunes, but everything I've tried (for 6-7 hours) has not worked. Am I missing something? Has Apple made it impossible to play ITunes using a Home Pod? This is the only reason I bought one...An AI bot kept me strung along almost all day with fixes, one after anotherone of which worked. What am I missing?

Does anyone have any quirks with the audio processing?

I currently have the HomePods on speaker stands for the wider soundstage. I originally had them towards the front of my tv stand, but for some reason the audio processing gets really weird. Tv dialogue sounds really tinny and hollow, theme songs have a weird muffled sound to them, in general it just sounds worse.

Music sounds good and more full due to the reflections from the tv stand, with less wide soundstage.

It has to be the audio processing, because after resetting it sounds full and good then after 5 seconds it changes for the worse.

This is a question for anyone using either the original HomePod or the larger second model with a subwoofer linked through Apple AirPort Express or Belkin AirPlay: when the subwoofer plays alongside the HomePod, does it disable Dolby Atmos and reduce the output to a standard speaker?

I’m moving apartments tomorrow and the one thing that’s been bothering me is my homepod mini. How do I move it?

I don’t have many smart home devices so I don’t mind setting them all up again but what about the homepod itself? Do i have to create a new home in the home app and delete my old one?

For those who have 4 or 5 home pods working together for one room, what’s your experience like? I would like 4 for the surround sound but with 5 I believe I can make it the center speaker for vocals… please share your experience.

So rumors strongly suggest we're getting a new HomePod mini, Apple TV, and the "HomePad" device Tuesday; all of which are rumored to support Siri AI. If this comes to fruition, all Apple home devices in its lineup will support Siri AI except for the HomePod 2nd Gen.

It would seem odd to me for Apple to have in its lineup a HomePod mini with Siri AI support and a full size HomePod without it.

It would be great if they announce Siri AI for the HomePod 2nd Gen but the S7 is probably too old. My hope is we can outsource the "AI" to the "HomePad" or new Apple TV 4K because I don't see why each device needs all that compute power.

I have several HomePods and HomePod minis and won't upgrade just to get Siri AI support. Siri AI on my iPhone has actually been slower to control accessories so it's not worth it on its own in my opinion.

I think the rumored 4 HomePod speaker group is more enticing but from what's been leaked so far it's looking like HomePod 2nd Gen will support this feature.

Anyways this is just something I've been chewing on all week.

I bought a HomePod 2nd gen at launch and enjoyed it without realizing what I was missing.

For the price, the HomePod sounds better than many other speakers and soundbars. The bass is deeper, and dialogue is clear. Its 360-degree sound makes it hard to tell exactly where the audio is coming from but you can’t customize the bass and treble to your liking.

Connectivity, though, is hell. Apple seems to make it worse with every update. It gets stuck during setup and updates, eARC constantly disconnects, and connecting multiple speakers often fails. Sometimes, there’s even a delay when playing podcasts. It only works with Apple devices, and you need an Apple TV to route your TV’s audio to it through eARC which, in my experience, disconnects almost every week.

Then there’s the ghost-touch issue, which I blame on faulty touch panels. After dealing with all of this, I decided, “Screw Apple. I’m never buying their speakers again.”

I tried several soundbars but returned them because they didn’t have that HomePod feel. Then I looked into Sonos, which had just released the Beam Ultra, and this thing is a beast. It’s more expensive than the HomePod, but it sounds better, and I don’t have to worry about connectivity. I just plugged it into the TV, and all the audio goes through HDMI. No restarts, no lag, and no disconnections. The sound fills the whole room and has that same smoothness I loved about the HomePod.