Watch: The best Siri commands for HomePod

AppleInsider

Apple's HomePod is out and users are impressed by the smart speaker's premium sound quality, but some have yet to take full advantage of its voice control functionality. To help users get started, AppleInsider collected a few useful phrases and commands that highlight Siri's capabilities.

Here's a list of the commands seen in the video above. Try them out with your HomePod by first invoking Siri by saying, "Hey Siri."

Music:

• Play Beats 1 radio
  
• Set volume to 50%
  
• Who sings this song?
  
• Add this song to my favorites
  
• Add this song to my Apple Watch playlist.
  
• Play some classical orchestra music

Reminders:

• Remind me to go to the store today
  
• Read my reminders

Alarms and timers:

• Set an alarm for [time]
  
• I'm awake
  
  
• Set an alarm for 7 in the morning and make it repeat everyday
  
• Delete my [time] alarm
  
  
• Set a timer for half an hour.
  
• How much time is left on the timer?
  
• Stop the timer
  
  
• When is daylight savings time?

Lists:

• Make a shopping list
  
• Add bananas to shopping list
  
• Read my shopping list
  
• Delete my shopping list

Conversions, translation and language:

• How many ounces are in a cup?
  
• How many teaspoons make one tablespoon?
  
• How many calories are in a tortilla?
  
• How many calories are in an orange?
  
  
• How do you say see you later in french?
  
• Translate Nice to meet you in Chinese.
  
• Convert 50 dollars to euros
  
• Define inevitable

Numbers:

• What's 80 x $21.59
  
• Now Multiply that by 24
  
• What's 20% of that?

Navigation:

• What's the traffic like going to work?
  
• How long does it take to drive to Seattle?
  
• Where's the closest gas station?
  
• Where can I buy some flowers?
  
• Where can I buy a replacement light bulb?
  
• Where's the nearest ATM?
  
• Where's the nearest Redbox?
  
• Where can I get some coffee?
  
• Where's the nearest pizza place?

Current events:

• What's the news today?
  
• Switch to Fox News.
  
• Give me the latest sports news.
  
• How's the stock market today?
  
• What's the best movie out right now?
  
• Give me showtimes for Jumanji.

Miscellaneous:

• How tall is mount everest?
  
• Flip a coin
  
• Do you work for the FBI?

We'll be looking at HomeKit commands in a future video, so stay tuned.

For more reviews, news, tips, features and more, subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube.

mistergsf

Anyone experiencing HomePod not hearing "Hey, Siri" during loud music playing? HomePod is supposed to hear even when music is loud but mine was unresponsive last night when testing it out.

coolfactor

That video triggered my Hey Siri.

macpro

Try 'Hey Siri what is absolute zero?"  Believe it or not she doesn't say Google, she gives the correct answer.

gatorguy

...and we have the first one in, only took three posts

edited February 2018

deepinsider

Dave: "Play music from my iTunes library that I ripped from CD."

Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that... unless you pay for iTunes match so you can stream music that you already paid for, and already have on your Mac, over the internet."

Dave: "Get lost. I'm buying a smarter smart speaker."

robjenk

If only Siri could think outside its box!

ihatescreennames

deepinsider said:

Dave: "Play music from my iTunes library that I ripped from CD."



Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that... unless you pay for iTunes match so you can stream music that you already paid for, and already have on your Mac, over the internet."



Dave: "Get lost. I'm buying a smarter smart speaker."

Serious question: are there other ‘smart speakers’ that can play music directly from an iTunes library? Which ones?  Thanks!

gatorguy

ihatescreennames said:

deepinsider said:

Dave: "Play music from my iTunes library that I ripped from CD."



Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that... unless you pay for iTunes match so you can stream music that you already paid for, and already have on your Mac, over the internet."



Dave: "Get lost. I'm buying a smarter smart speaker."

Serious question: are there other ‘smart speakers’ that can play music directly from an iTunes library? Which ones?  Thanks!

One example:
https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7381505?hl=en-AU

ihatescreennames

gatorguy said:

ihatescreennames said:

deepinsider said:

Dave: "Play music from my iTunes library that I ripped from CD."



Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that... unless you pay for iTunes match so you can stream music that you already paid for, and already have on your Mac, over the internet."



Dave: "Get lost. I'm buying a smarter smart speaker."

Serious question: are there other ‘smart speakers’ that can play music directly from an iTunes library? Which ones?  Thanks!

One example:
https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7381505?hl=en-AU

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Can you play directly from iTunes using only your voice, as the original post I quoted implies? The support document you linked to isn’t specific about that. 

deepinsider

Serious question: shouldn't an Apple smart speaker play all music from my iTunes library via Siri? I don't expect third-party speakers to do this, but one from Apple certainly should. But it won't, because those jerks want to milk more money from people. The $350 for the speaker isn't enough for them.

If I have to sit down at my iMac or pull out my iPhone anyhow, I might as well save some money on the speaker, eh. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, Applesoft.

spamsandwich

It’s absurd to have to memorize a list of verbal commands these days. If a system doesn’t understand the request it should offer alternatives or ask clarifying questions.

A person with no knowledge of the commands should be able to request a song, raise or lower volume or other simple requests in whatever natural language patterns they are comfortable with.

ihatescreennames

deepinsider said:

Serious question: shouldn't an Apple smart speaker play all music from my iTunes library via Siri? I don't expect third-party speakers to do this, but one from Apple certainly should. But it won't, because those jerks want to milk more money from people. The $350 for the speaker isn't enough for them.

If I have to sit down at my iMac or pull out my iPhone anyhow, I might as well save some money on the speaker, eh. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, Applesoft.

Your quote said, “Get lost. I’m buying a smarter smart speaker.” so I figured you must know of one that will use verbal commands to play from a locally stored library. Now it appears you’re moving the goalposts. 

I, too, would love it if I could use HomePod Siri to play music from iTunes but it currently doesn’t. And why should it in its current form? Siri is basically run on Apple servers, not my home computer.  I don’t expect my iPhone to play music streamed from iTunes via Siri either.  Siri has never worked this way.

SpamSandwich said:

It’s absurd to have to memorize a list of verbal commands these days. If a system doesn’t understand the request it should offer alternatives or ask clarifying questions.

A person with no knowledge of the commands should be able to request a song, raise or lower volume or other simple requests in whatever natural language patterns they are comfortable with.

I didn’t take this as a list that had to be memorized as much as a list of commands that AppleInsider happened to try and work.  In my experience Siri is pretty good at parsing out what I’m saying.  I don’t have to say, “Set a reminder at 4:00 to pick up milk.”, I can say it several different ways and it still works. Like “Remind me to pick up milk at 4:00.” or “At 4:00 remind me to pick up milk.”

I haven’t used HomePod, but what makes you think it would be difficult for someone with no knowledge of the commands have trouble with the things you listed, like playing a song or changing the volume?  I mean, how many ways are there to ask to change the volume that you think Siri would not understand?

macpro

"Switch to Fox News" ... Really?  

We just had a laugh, my wife said 'Hey Siri'  and then paused to get her thoughts on how to phrase a question.  After a few seconds Siri makes a 'mmmm huh?' type sound to urge her to continue.  Yesterday she answered a question and being the polite chap I am I said 'Thank you' without thinking.  She responds, "It should be me who is thanking you ...  "  Never a dull moment.

edited February 2018

patchythepirate

Great list. Definitely looking forward to more.

Really liking my homepod. It's taking some getting used to just remembering its there and that I don't need to use my phone or watch (my series 2 is still f%&$ing useless 1/2 the time with the "ill tap you when I'm ready" bs). Of course homepod sounds great.

Even though Siri is incrementally better with homepod (much more natural timing wise), siri still sucks and is incredibly annoying to use even just for everyday things. Along with the usual things, siri through homepod couldn't even find a playlist that was on apple music and on my phone. I tried asking several times and siri couldn't do it. Pretty pathetic. (Fantastic playlist btw, posted by OVERWERK, called Night Drive, or "the essential driving playlist : presented by OVERWERK.")

It's also frustrating not to have a visual of what is going on on the homepod (e.g having to pause the music for siri to tell me what song it is). Makes me think that it's very very probable that Apple will have a dedicated siri app or visual dialogue in iOS 12.

patchythepirate

Lol at the switch to Fox News. I'll probably have to do that now and then. It's a shame that the media is split into right (fox) and left (nearly everyone else). It would be a very useful resource if Apple took the time to curate the news to make it actually objective, as the news should be. I'm sure it'd take some work finding objective reporting from some of the small to medium sized media outlets that aren't always pushing agendas (as the large ones are), but it'd be a great differentiator for Apple News.

bradford_kirby

ihatescreennames said:

deepinsider said:

Dave: "Play music from my iTunes library that I ripped from CD."



Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that... unless you pay for iTunes match so you can stream music that you already paid for, and already have on your Mac, over the internet."



Dave: "Get lost. I'm buying a smarter smart speaker."

Serious question: are there other ‘smart speakers’ that can play music directly from an iTunes library? Which ones?  Thanks!

What an incredibly small and stupid thing to say... iTunes may have destroyed the music industry but they had help. Not every song on match was bought with iTunes. Remember syncing? Or CDs and how much better is is when we don’t let Apple run our lives.