Apple Releases 14.1 Software for HomePod With Intercom and HomePod Mini Support
Alongside iOS and iPadOS 14.1, Apple today released new 14.1 software for the HomePod, which includes a number of new updates such as support for the Intercom feature that allows you to speak to anyone in the home on iPhone, iPad, HomePod, and more.
The update also introduces support for the HomePod mini that's launching in November and it adds new Siri features. Siri is able to stop alarms, timers, and media across HomePod speakers, and web search requests from HomePod can be sent from HomePod to the iPhone.
There's also an option to add music to alarms to wake up to a favorite song or playlist from Apple Music, and there are multiple reliability improvements.
Software version 14.1 includes support for HomePod mini and new Siri and Intercom features. This update also includes bug fixes and improvements.
HomePod mini
- Setup and automatically transfer your Apple ID, Apple Music, Siri and Wi-Fi settings to HomePod mini
Siri
- Siri suggestions appear in Maps when you ask HomePod for information about a location
- Web search requests to HomePod can be sent from HomePod to your iPhone
- Siri can now stop alarms, timers, and media across HomePod speakers
- Voice recognition support for Podcasts for multiple users in the home
Intercom
- Ask HomePod to make announcements to other HomePod speakers throughout your home
- Intercom to all HomePod speakers
- Intercom to a HomePod in a specific room or zone
Other improvements and fixes
- Add music to your alarms and wake up to your personal song, playlist, or radio station from Apple Music
- Fixes an issue where stereo pairs can sometimes play out of sync
- Improves reliability when using Siri to control multiple speakers
- Optimizes Siri performance
HomePod software is installed automatically on the HomePod, but the HomePod can also be manually updated by following the instructions in our HomePod update how to.
Popular Stories
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Top Rated Comments
I have 6 HomePods and never seen any lag at all in a 5200 sq ft house. Airplay 2 avoids this by providing a large buffer and streaming faster than real time, check your wifi. I also have Sonos, Alexa, and Google devices and Apple's response times beat the pants off of all of them.
The lag on Homepod makes for a crappy device. Did Siri hear me? Do I repeat myself? Or did it fail as is typical with Siri? If you have time to think these things before Siri responds, it’s way too slow.
I’m hoping the update fixes the latency issue on Homepod to make it usable.