This is not that hard. The HomePod will play anything that any other Bluetooth or AirPlay speaker will play, just the same way you play those other things on those other things. That’s the baseline. Pull up your Spotify playlist on your phone or computer, connect to HomePod via Airplay or Bluetooth and hit play on your phone or computer, just like you would to play Spotify through any other speaker. Oh, and reportedly, it will sound way better than most of those other speakers (though maybe not as good as your $5,000 maganpanar speaker set up).
If you subscribe to Apple Music, it will play things from Apple Music via Siri voice command: Hey Siri, play the album “Abbey Road.”
If you have something that’s not in Apple Music, but you’ve uploaded it to the Cloud via iTunes Match, it will play things from your iTunes Match library via Siri voice command: Hey Siri, play the album “Rolling Stones Bootleg,” (or whatever you’ve named your bootleg collection of stones tracks).
I'm assuming that the HomePod works with iTunes Match in the same way that iOS and macOS devices work with iTunes Match. FYI, there is a hard limit on the total number of devices that can have access to the same iTunes Match subscription. Last I looked the limit is ten (10) devices, which I've hit. I'm interested to know whether the HomePod will consume one of the ten iTunes Match device licenses??? The iTunes Match subscription is very nice in that it allows you to download Apple Music albums and songs to your devices so they don't have to stream from the cloud. I do wish Apple would simply roll iTunes Match into Apple Music as an adder, e.g., "Apple Music Plus," rather than having it as a separate somewhat standalone service.
[...] it remains to be seen whether HomePod can find your locally shared iTunes library.
The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.
For me, this article is one more nudge towards getting a HomePod for the kitchen. Apple Music isn't a good value for us since we already own just about everything we'd ever want to hear and our purchases of new material add up to less than what an Apple Music subscription would cost (even after we factor in the cost of Match), so confirmation that we can play our library on the HomePod without needing another device to "push" content to it is welcome news!
I've not had a problem with locally stored video on ATV. It shows up fine when I select the "computer" icon. I can scroll through and find all my content that is stored in the drive connected to my iMac that is on the same network.
I really, really dislike paying subscription fees. Apple offers first time users of AW a 3 month trial, but if you've consumed that, and buy a HomePod, I'm fairly certain you don't get another trial.
That said, as a shareholder, I like that Apple is charging subscription fees.
I've not had a problem with locally stored video on ATV. It shows up fine when I select the "computer" icon. I can scroll through and find all my content that is stored in the drive connected to my iMac that is on the same network.
The thing is, iTunes only accepts video in a very limited number of formats. My guess is that the OP has video stored in formats iTunes doesn't support. So it needs to be converted.
I really, really dislike paying subscription fees. Apple offers first time users of AW a 3 month trial, but if you've consumed that, and buy a HomePod, I'm fairly certain you don't get another trial.
I spent a number of years shunning subscription fees too. But the reality is that one-time purchases only work as a valid business model for physical items or similar things which are created once and given a limited time of support. Once you get into products which must be maintained by the company in perpetuity (like cloud storage), the only way to avoid losing money is to either charge a subscription fee (as Apple does) or continually harvest and monetize the usage data (as Google does).
The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.
Use an app to play your video content on the Apple TV. I use Air Video HD and am very happy with it. Maybe there will be apps for the Home Pod that add to its capabilities.
This isn't true. Unless something's changed recently, they've always been separate services. Apple Music has some features similar to iTunes Match, but lacks others, such as DRM-free download of the music you match. I subscribe to both, because I'm dumb and use Match as a backup for all my music, so I can delete it from my local hard drive, but could always, in theory, download it from the cloud at some point in the future.
I really, really dislike paying subscription fees. Apple offers first time users of AW a 3 month trial, but if you've consumed that, and buy a HomePod, I'm fairly certain you don't get another trial.
I spent a number of years shunning subscription fees too. But the reality is that one-time purchases only work as a valid business model for physical items or similar things which are created once and given a limited time of support. Once you get into products which must be maintained by the company in perpetuity (like cloud storage), the only way to avoid losing money is to either charge a subscription fee (as Apple does) or continually harvest and monetize the usage data (as Google does).
That's fair, and understandable. I just choose not to buy. The "do I need this" question takes longer to answer.
There was a "deal" offered on one of the tech blogs for a "lifetime VPN service." I paid the very reasonable fee, and about a year later I got a $125 invoices. I called the company, and they were very clear about it. "We offered that deal, and it isn't sustainable. We can't continue to lose money, so you'll have to pay for it or we are going to terminate the service." So, a shake down. They took a $25/yr compromise, because I justified it on the basis that configuring a VPN isn't trivial. But I am looking for a new one, as I won't continue to do business with a company like that. Will I find one that is "lifetime" that doesn't pull this again? Maybe not.
Now I think about it, if Apple offered a new airport/timemachine with a VPN service, I'd be interested.
The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.
Use an app to play your video content on the Apple TV. I use Air Video HD and am very happy with it. Maybe there will be apps for the Home Pod that add to its capabilities.
I use Infuse from the App Store. It lets you add external hard drives that are connected to your Mac as “share drives” within the app. Once you have that set up yo can access and play the content on your shares ( external hd’s ). What I like is that it uses the ATV4 itself to do the transcoding on the fly as you watch your video. So no matter what format you have your videos saved in it will be able to play them back.
I had originally used air video hd, but found out my little Mac mini had a hard time transcoding multiple videos at the same time. We have 5 atv’s In the house....
This isn't true. Unless something's changed recently, they've always been separate services. Apple Music has some features similar to iTunes Match, but lacks others, such as DRM-free download of the music you match. I subscribe to both, because I'm dumb and use Match as a backup for all my music, so I can delete it from my local hard drive, but could always, in theory, download it from the cloud at some point in the future.
This was discussed here about a month ago. I looked into it at that time and found that about a year ago, things did in fact change.
According to Apple and the very helpful iMore article, Apple Music includes "all the benefits of iTunes Match" (and it seems without attaching DRM, like it used to):
The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.
Use an app to play your video content on the Apple TV. I use Air Video HD and am very happy with it. Maybe there will be apps for the Home Pod that add to its capabilities.
Yep Air Video HD is good. Plex is also good. No need to reencode anything.
This isn't true. Unless something's changed recently, they've always been separate services. Apple Music has some features similar to iTunes Match, but lacks others, such as DRM-free download of the music you match. I subscribe to both, because I'm dumb and use Match as a backup for all my music, so I can delete it from my local hard drive, but could always, in theory, download it from the cloud at some point in the future.
iMore said that changed over a year ago and AM’s matching is DRM-free.
I’d rather it had the capability (same wish as AppleTV) to search my local iTunes library shares. I have music that isn’t available on Match and although although my rips are from CD, they were ripped in AppleLossless. As this speaker is supposed to be super in every way imaginable for a device this size and with discrete 2-channel in the works, it makes sense to this small mind that the better the source, the better the transparency to the source.
Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?
Only with Siri yes. I don't see why you can't just use your library without paying $25 and without using Siri to play your music. Basically, just using HomePod as a AirPlay speaker and you control what song plays yourself manually on your phone. I would assume if you had a play list and started playing it, then it would just keep playing that playlist. You just wouldn't be able to ask Siri to play the song(s) or playlist(s) for you.
OK. So I need to go upstairs to the computer, set it up to play what I want, then go back to the other room to listen? And if the volume isn't right, I need to go back to that computer, reset it, and go from there. That's how this works? Or pay $25/year for functionality with Siri?
Fairly, I have a surplus iPod I could set next to it and stream free stuff. I guess the "all works together" moniker is now "it all works together for a fee."
Am I missing something? Why won’t the controls work?
I haven’t seen anything that says those buttons work (or Siri commands) work when you’re just using it as a dumb, wireless speaker. Hopefully AirPlay works for that, but maybe it’ll require AirPlay 2 or Home Sharing.
Until there’s a confirmation of that being tested I think it’s best to lean toward those absolutely only working for Apple Music, iTunes Match and iCloud Music (just like the Siri commands), and that the only thing you can be certain to expect is being able to adjust the volume up and down when not using as as intended.
The same goes for the well worn Apple TV which doesn’t get all the features available for the Siri Remote when using AirPlay or Home Sharing, and that’s a mature product.
[...] it remains to be seen whether HomePod can find your locally shared iTunes library.
The way the Apple TV 4K all but ignores my locally-stored video content leaves me feeling less than optimistic about the HomePod being able to work well with a Homeshare library, but it would be nice if it did.
If you convert your videos to an iTunes supported format (.m4v) using Handbrake, you can add them to your homeshared iTunes library and they'll show up on your Apple TV under "Home Videos".
Sure, but locally-stored/Homehsared items aren't added to the "Up next" section, do not sync watched/unwatched status across devices (this works with the older, third-generation Apple TV, but is broken on the ATV4K), and are not revealed by searches. My grandson searched for a specific episode of The Simpsons that is in our local (Homeshared) library, and the Apple TV presented him with a link to buy it on the iTunes Store.
Just so I understand: if you have a drive of music on the same network you connect the $349 HomePod to, you have to then pay $25/year to let the HomePod have access to it? Is that about it?
Only with Siri yes. I don't see why you can't just use your library without paying $25 and without using Siri to play your music. Basically, just using HomePod as a AirPlay speaker and you control what song plays yourself manually on your phone. I would assume if you had a play list and started playing it, then it would just keep playing that playlist. You just wouldn't be able to ask Siri to play the song(s) or playlist(s) for you.
OK. So I need to go upstairs to the computer, set it up to play what I want, then go back to the other room to listen? And if the volume isn't right, I need to go back to that computer, reset it, and go from there. That's how this works? Or pay $25/year for functionality with Siri?
Fairly, I have a surplus iPod I could set next to it and stream free stuff. I guess the "all works together" moniker is now "it all works together for a fee."
Am I missing something? Why won’t the controls work?
Speaking of the controls on Apple's audio devices, I gotta wonder why Apple is so resistant to providing dedicated track skip buttons? I suppose there is some justification for it on headphones where space for controls is limited (though Sennheiser managed to add them in the same format as the Beats Solo just by putting them on the front/back axis of the rocker that the Beats don't use at all), but why leave them off devices with plenty of room for them, like the Pill and HomePod?
The double- and triple-click thing is not at all intuitive, and I find myself constantly getting the timing wrong, so I either pause when I'm trying to skip (or vice-versa) or skip when I'm trying to back up.
For me it's more of a quibble than a full-on bitch, but I would welcome dedicated skip forward and skip back buttons, like every other dogdamn audio device on the freakin' planet! Especially if holding them down instead of tapping provided FF/REW capability that is completely absent from those devices now.
Use an app to play your video content on the Apple TV. I use Air Video HD and am very happy with it. Maybe there will be apps for the Home Pod that add to its capabilities.
Thanks for the tips folks.
There's no problem with my library, it works, it's just that the Apple TV 4K treats local content like a second-class citizen. Features and functions lean heavily towards supporting content purchased from Apple's iTunes Store and residing in the Apple cloud.
My library is all Apple-compatible mpeg4. A lot of it is even stuff purchased from the iTunes Store. It's all in iTunes on a Mac mini dedicated to serving up that media via Homesharing. I'm able to play it on the new Apple TV by selecting the Computers icon, but local stuff doesn't benefit from the added features available on the app-based Apple TVs (like Search and Up Next) and it doesn't sync watched/unwatched status between devices anymore (the third-generation Apple TV did). In fact, if I play a local download of a show I've purchased from the iTunes Store it doesn't even mark the cloud version watched. Plus there doesn't seem to be a way to manually mark a show watched like I could with the third-generation version.
The point is that the device doesn't do a very good job of integrating locally stored and cloud-served content, and some features work ONLY with cloud-based material. That erodes my confidence in the HomePod doing a good job of a similar thing -- handling locally stored and Homeshared material the same way it does stuff from the cloud.
I'm assuming that the HomePod works with iTunes Match in the same way that iOS and macOS devices work with iTunes Match. FYI, there is a hard limit on the total number of devices that can have access to the same iTunes Match subscription. Last I looked the limit is ten (10) devices, which I've hit. I'm interested to know whether the HomePod will consume one of the ten iTunes Match device licenses??? The iTunes Match subscription is very nice in that it allows you to download Apple Music albums and songs to your devices so they don't have to stream from the cloud. I do wish Apple would simply roll iTunes Match into Apple Music as an adder, e.g., "Apple Music Plus," rather than having it as a separate somewhat standalone service.
I think having ten devices connected is quite unusual, so it’s not something most people would worry about.
More importantly, which is why I’m putting it in capitals in the vain hope that someone won’t repeat what you’ve said in five minutes:
ITUNES MATCH IS INCLUDED AS PART OF YOUR APPLE MUSIC SUBSCRIPTION. There is no need for an Apple Music+ because it’s already there in Apple Music Regular.
So there’s no reason to sign up to both.
So let’s recap how this works.
If you have a track purchased from iTunes Siri will find it.
If you have a track in your iTunes library that Apple can find in its 45 million track library then iTunes Match/Apple Music will find it and so can Siri.
So what about those tracks which are not featured in the Apple catalogue? Time for an experiment.
I have a track I found on the internet. It was ripped from a tv commercial, and so is not part of the Apple catalogue. In this case, iTunes Match/Apple Music scanned the track but didn’t find it, so it UPLOADED THE TRACK TO MY MUSIC STREAM WHERE IT IS NOW AVAILABLE TO ALL MY DEVICES AND SIRI.
Again, so that people can see it.
If you have a track that is not in Apple’s catalogue then Siri will still index it if you have iTunes Match OR Apple Music. If you have neither service then tracks can be played remotely from your device, and in this case the controls on top of the HomePod should allow you to change volume and skip tracks.
How does this work with music in iCloud Music Library that is not available in iTunes or Apple Music. Can you use Siri for that or only Airplay from iPhone?
FYI. Just covered that. Tracks not available in the iCloud music Library are uploaded to your music stream where Siri will find them. I’ve just tried it on an iPad and an iPhone. There was no meta data for the track, so Siri only had the track name to go on (I don’t know who the artist was so I didn’t fill it in), but she did find it and play it.
Comments
If you subscribe to Apple Music, it will play things from Apple Music via Siri voice command: Hey Siri, play the album “Abbey Road.”
If you have something that’s not in Apple Music, but you’ve uploaded it to the Cloud via iTunes Match, it will play things from your iTunes Match library via Siri voice command: Hey Siri, play the album “Rolling Stones Bootleg,” (or whatever you’ve named your bootleg collection of stones tracks).
Mercifully, I was not one of the unfortunate souls who had their local library wiped out by Apple or/and replaced with low-fi versions.
I've not had a problem with locally stored video on ATV. It shows up fine when I select the "computer" icon. I can scroll through and find all my content that is stored in the drive connected to my iMac that is on the same network.
I really, really dislike paying subscription fees. Apple offers first time users of AW a 3 month trial, but if you've consumed that, and buy a HomePod, I'm fairly certain you don't get another trial.
That said, as a shareholder, I like that Apple is charging subscription fees.
I spent a number of years shunning subscription fees too. But the reality is that one-time purchases only work as a valid business model for physical items or similar things which are created once and given a limited time of support. Once you get into products which must be maintained by the company in perpetuity (like cloud storage), the only way to avoid losing money is to either charge a subscription fee (as Apple does) or continually harvest and monetize the usage data (as Google does).
This isn't true. Unless something's changed recently, they've always been separate services. Apple Music has some features similar to iTunes Match, but lacks others, such as DRM-free download of the music you match. I subscribe to both, because I'm dumb and use Match as a backup for all my music, so I can delete it from my local hard drive, but could always, in theory, download it from the cloud at some point in the future.
That's fair, and understandable. I just choose not to buy. The "do I need this" question takes longer to answer.
There was a "deal" offered on one of the tech blogs for a "lifetime VPN service." I paid the very reasonable fee, and about a year later I got a $125 invoices. I called the company, and they were very clear about it. "We offered that deal, and it isn't sustainable. We can't continue to lose money, so you'll have to pay for it or we are going to terminate the service." So, a shake down. They took a $25/yr compromise, because I justified it on the basis that configuring a VPN isn't trivial. But I am looking for a new one, as I won't continue to do business with a company like that. Will I find one that is "lifetime" that doesn't pull this again? Maybe not.
Now I think about it, if Apple offered a new airport/timemachine with a VPN service, I'd be interested.
https://firecore.com/infuse
I had originally used air video hd, but found out my little Mac mini had a hard time transcoding multiple videos at the same time. We have 5 atv’s In the house....
According to Apple and the very helpful iMore article, Apple Music includes "all the benefits of iTunes Match" (and it seems without attaching DRM, like it used to):
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146
https://www.imore.com/do-i-still-need-itunes-match-if-i-have-apple-music
https://www.imore.com/do-i-still-need-itunes-match-if-i-have-apple-music
Until there’s a confirmation of that being tested I think it’s best to lean toward those absolutely only working for Apple Music, iTunes Match and iCloud Music (just like the Siri commands), and that the only thing you can be certain to expect is being able to adjust the volume up and down when not using as as intended.
The same goes for the well worn Apple TV which doesn’t get all the features available for the Siri Remote when using AirPlay or Home Sharing, and that’s a mature product.
Speaking of the controls on Apple's audio devices, I gotta wonder why Apple is so resistant to providing dedicated track skip buttons? I suppose there is some justification for it on headphones where space for controls is limited (though Sennheiser managed to add them in the same format as the Beats Solo just by putting them on the front/back axis of the rocker that the Beats don't use at all), but why leave them off devices with plenty of room for them, like the Pill and HomePod?
The double- and triple-click thing is not at all intuitive, and I find myself constantly getting the timing wrong, so I either pause when I'm trying to skip (or vice-versa) or skip when I'm trying to back up.
For me it's more of a quibble than a full-on bitch, but I would welcome dedicated skip forward and skip back buttons, like every other dogdamn audio device on the freakin' planet!
There's no problem with my library, it works, it's just that the Apple TV 4K treats local content like a second-class citizen. Features and functions lean heavily towards supporting content purchased from Apple's iTunes Store and residing in the Apple cloud.
My library is all Apple-compatible mpeg4. A lot of it is even stuff purchased from the iTunes Store. It's all in iTunes on a Mac mini dedicated to serving up that media via Homesharing. I'm able to play it on the new Apple TV by selecting the Computers icon, but local stuff doesn't benefit from the added features available on the app-based Apple TVs (like Search and Up Next) and it doesn't sync watched/unwatched status between devices anymore (the third-generation Apple TV did). In fact, if I play a local download of a show I've purchased from the iTunes Store it doesn't even mark the cloud version watched. Plus there doesn't seem to be a way to manually mark a show watched like I could with the third-generation version.
The point is that the device doesn't do a very good job of integrating locally stored and cloud-served content, and some features work ONLY with cloud-based material. That erodes my confidence in the HomePod doing a good job of a similar thing -- handling locally stored and Homeshared material the same way it does stuff from the cloud.
More importantly, which is why I’m putting it in capitals in the vain hope that someone won’t repeat what you’ve said in five minutes:
ITUNES MATCH IS INCLUDED AS PART OF YOUR APPLE MUSIC SUBSCRIPTION. There is no need for an Apple Music+ because it’s already there in Apple Music Regular.
So there’s no reason to sign up to both.
So let’s recap how this works.
If you have a track purchased from iTunes Siri will find it.
If you have a track in your iTunes library that Apple can find in its 45 million track library then iTunes Match/Apple Music will find it and so can Siri.
So what about those tracks which are not featured in the Apple catalogue? Time for an experiment.
I have a track I found on the internet. It was ripped from a tv commercial, and so is not part of the Apple catalogue. In this case, iTunes Match/Apple Music scanned the track but didn’t find it, so it UPLOADED THE TRACK TO MY MUSIC STREAM WHERE IT IS NOW AVAILABLE TO ALL MY DEVICES AND SIRI.
Again, so that people can see it.
If you have a track that is not in Apple’s catalogue then Siri will still index it if you have iTunes Match OR Apple Music. If you have neither service then tracks can be played remotely from your device, and in this case the controls on top of the HomePod should allow you to change volume and skip tracks.