YouTube Music may be coming to HomePod
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YouTube Music users will soon be able to get direct streaming and Siri control from their HomePod.
Starting with iOS 14, Apple gave third-party developers the ability to add native support for their music services to HomePod, but few took advantage of the feature. This is possible with services like Pandora, but popular services like Spotify still don't support it.
The list of supported services will soon increase by one, judging by the code discovered by user X @aaronp613. It's a small clue, but Aaron found a “Home” glyph and a “ytm_connect_with_homepod” URL in the YouTube Music app, indicating that the feature is at least being worked on.
If YouTube Music adds this feature, it will mean that users will be able to command HomePod through Siri and start listening to music through their YouTube Music account.
YouTube Music is working on adding HomePod support! pic.twitter.com/71KzB0UsZA
— Aaron (@aaronp613) September 12, 2023
This feature is implemented from the app settings, not Apple. For example, Pandora's integration with HomePod must be set up from within the app and cannot be discovered by the user anywhere else.
Once you add a service such as YouTube Music or Pandora, it appears as a media option in the Home app in your user account settings. From here, users can set the service as the default, meaning Siri commands will select that service instead of Apple Music.
Siri will play audio from non-standard sources if given the correct command. If the default setting is Apple Music, the user can say, “Siri, play my sleep playlist on YouTube Music.” “In YouTube Music” is not required if YouTube Music is the default.
Once implemented, YouTube Music users will have another option for using HomePod or HomePod mini. Hopefully other services like Spotify will take note of this integration and follow suit.
