Spotify Downplays HomePod Support, But Promises to Add AirPlay 2 Yet Again

Spotify has yet to implement native support for the HomePod and HomePod mini, despite Apple opening up the speakers to third-party streaming music services in 2020. As a result, Spotify cannot be controlled with Siri on the HomePod.

General Spotify Feature
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman touched on the matter in his newsletter this weekend, noting that Spotify told him there hasn't been a "significant volume" of complaints about the lack of HomePod support. A post on Spotify's community website advocating for native HomePod support has over 5,800 votes in favor of the idea since it was submitted in 2020, but Spotify has refused to budge despite Apple making the necessary APIs available.

In 2019, Spotify accused Apple of anticompetitive behavior in a complaint filed in the EU. Alongside the complaint, Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

Spotify has also repeatedly promised to update its iPhone and iPad app with AirPlay 2 support, but it has failed to deliver so far. The app does support the original version of AirPlay, but has yet to adopt AirPlay 2, which launched in 2018 with enhancements such as less buffering and support for stereo-paired HomePods.

Spotify told Gurman that it "remains committed to supporting AirPlay 2 at some point in the future" and is "on a path towards making it happen eventually," but the company was unable to provide a definitive timeframe. Spotify has been promising to support AirPlay 2 since at least 2021, so subscribers have waited a long time.

Related Roundups: HomePod, HomePod mini

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Top Rated Comments

Techwatcher Avatar
26 months ago
Imagine being petty at the cost of customer satisfaction? What a stupid company lol glad I use Apple Music.
Score: 73 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Fan 2008 Avatar
26 months ago
They don't really care about fairness, they just like complaining.
Score: 65 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Quu Avatar
26 months ago
It's funny to me that Spotify announced high-definition streaming and Apple was able to both announce and release it before Spotify followed through. And even now it's still not available.

Airplay is least of their problems.
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
StudyFlo Avatar
26 months ago
Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website ('https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/') that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet, nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

This is seriously f*cked up. Why complain if you didn’t (ever) intend to support the feature.
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macsplusmacs Avatar
26 months ago

Spotify launched a "Time to Play Fair" website ('https://www.timetoplayfair.com/timeline/') that lists alleged examples of Apple's unfair practices, including preventing Spotify from natively supporting the HomePod. Yet, nearly three years after Spotify has been able to support the HomePod without any further action from Apple, it has yet to follow through.

This is seriously f*cked up. Why complain if you didn’t (ever) intend to support the feature.
Because they get press and get to beat up on "bad ole apple" while proping up their brand.

The CEOs of Spotify are among the jerky-est jerks in a C suite office.

No shame.

Just complain.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BuffaloTF Avatar
26 months ago

As much as I don't like Spotify for messing about on this I really can't agree that Apple Music is better, it's worse. Way worse than Spotify.

YMMV of course but Apple has nothing in Spotify and their interface, music selection, and more. It makes so much more sense for me to use Apple Music and I have tried many times. And I am in no way in the minority.
Apple has more music. It also has better audio quality. The interfaces are nigh identical. What?
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)