Homepot mini, I am very curious about it

By María, 15 October, 2020

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hello Everyone,
in the last Apple event of this week I listend about HOmepot mini, and I am very curious about, and so, I would like to know if it would let me doing somethings that now I do with the Victor Reader, if it was so, it would be much better than Victor Reader. So, do you know if I could do the following three things?
1. If I am subscribed to some podcast w with Apple podcast in my Iphone, could I sliten them with the HOmepot as well?.
2. Could I lsiten radios arround the world and to be able to create a favourite radios list?.
3. Could I listen all the things that I have in my Icloud?, I am thinking about Talking books or music that I have saved in my Icloud.
Do you know some article or podcast about this HOmepot?.
And the last thing, normal hoepot and HOmepot mini are the same functions and possibilities or are there differences between them?.
Many thanks in advance.
María

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Comments

By Geoff on Thursday, October 22, 2020 - 12:50

First of all, the regular HomePod is a lot bigger than the new HomePod mini, and it is about three times the price. It sounds amazing, but it should for that kind of price.

There are two ways to listen to things on HomePod:
You can either send sound to it from your phone, using airplay, or you can play things on it directly.

Obviously, you can play more things through your phone than the speaker supports directly, because your phone has lots more apps and can do more things.

But there are some things you can do on the HomePod itself which includes some of the things that you want to do.

You can definitely listen to podcasts on your HomePod. I've not actually used it for this, so I'm not sure how tightly it is integrated with the podcast app, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is. Of course, you can also airplay your podcasts to your speaker if you prefer to use an app other than Apple podcasts.

You can definitely listen to radio stations on HomePod. HomePod has access to directories from Tunein and Iheart radio, and some others. And again, you can also airplay radio stations from your phone, if HomePod doesn't know the station you want.

You can definitely listen to music on your HomePod, either from the Apple music service or music that you have purchased through iTunes. There will also be other streaming music services coming.

I'm not aware of HomePod being able to play other files you put in iCloud, but again you could airplay this from an app on your phone.

Finally, the HomePod minie can do most of the things that the larger HomePod can do. The only thing I'm aware of that the larger HomePod can do that the HomePod mini cannot do is be used for a theatre mode for the Apple TV 4K. As far as I'm aware, this requires two larger HomePods. You also can't make a stereo pair from a HomePod mini and a regular HomePod, you either need two HomePod minis or two regular HomePods. These are the only things I'm aware of.

hope this helps.

By Chris on Thursday, October 22, 2020 - 12:50

I don't own any HomePod devices, but based off of what I've heard, the device can stream Apple Music, as well as any purchased music from the iTunes Store. I believe it can also play audiobooks purchased from iTunes as well. Aside from that, you'll need to use AirPlay to send any content to the device. This would be useful to do things like listen to books from the Audible or BARD apps, or books from VoiceDream Reader. I'm glad HomePod finally added the TuneIn support. Hopefully they'll add Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Music, etc.

By JC on Thursday, October 22, 2020 - 12:50

Like what other posters have stated, the HomePod mini is a bit smaller than the regular HomePod. I'm looking forward to purchasing it when it becomes available. and since I have an iPhone, I can airplay from my phone to the HomePod mini. you can also listen to music from other music streaming services such as pandora and amazon music, but that will be coming soon. you can also send audio messages, and even send regular text messages using siri hands-free. I cannot wait to try that out. for now, you can stream from apple music, (if you have an active subscription) or purchases from your library.