Apple Releases HomePod Software 17.4 With Music Preference Update

Apple today released new software for the HomePod and the HomePod mini, debuting ‌HomePod‌ Software 17.4. The update comes over a month after the last ‌HomePod‌ software release.

HomePod 2 Midnight Closeup Feature Purple Blue
With ‌HomePod‌ Software 17.4, Siri is able to learn what a user's preferred media service is, eliminating the need to set a third-party app as the default or include an app name when asking ‌Siri‌ to play content.

This update enables Siri to learn your preferred media service, so you no longer need to include the name of the media app in your request.

Apple has removed the Home app option that let users select a default media service as a result of the new feature addition. The change brings the ‌HomePod‌ in line with the iPhone and the iPad, which already offer the option to provide a default music service selection to ‌Siri‌ when making a song request for the first time.

Third-party apps that work directly with the ‌‌HomePod‌‌ include YouTube Music, Deezer, Pandora, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio. Streaming music services need to support ‌‌HomePod‌‌ for the feature to work, and not all do, such as Spotify. You can play Spotify content on the ‌HomePod‌ by asking ‌Siri‌, but it routes the song through the ‌iPhone‌ to the ‌HomePod‌ over AirPlay.

Along with ‌‌Siri‌‌ support for a preferred music service, the ‌‌HomePod‌‌ 17.4 update also includes performance and stability improvements.

Related Roundups: HomePod, HomePod mini

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Top Rated Comments

coachgq Avatar
20 months ago
All this Spotify issue in the courts and they don’t even support music on the HomePod?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
boswald Avatar
20 months ago
Is it safe to update the OG HomePod(s)?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
VisionRex Avatar
20 months ago
Funny how as of today, Spotify has still not elected to add itself to the HomePod, showing they are intentionally being stubborn and malicious. Everyone else has, but them.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Blowback Avatar
20 months ago

Early updates to OG would often brick them. Those of us early adopters are still very gun-shy on updates as a result.
Mine, once again lucky, still works after this update. Two OG Hpods from their initial release by Apple....
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mike MA Avatar
20 months ago

Early updates to OG would often brick them. Those of us early adopters are still very gun-shy on updates as a result.
Those bricked HomePods date back to a broken incremental update which happened in 2021 and also was acknowledged and pulled back by Apple that time. Since than I’m not aware of another early adopter issue but only single occasions happened at any stage of the OS release cycles, yet surely painfully enough. Also no issue with 17.4 for me on all three models.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
andrewmarich Avatar
20 months ago
OGs updated without a hitch, working as expected.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)