New iOS 14 beta adds ability to set default services for HomePod

By Joe Wituschek
published

White HomePod sitting on a television stand
White HomePod sitting on a television stand (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • The new iOS 14 beta was released today to developers.
  • The newest beta includes the ability to set default services on HomePod.
  • Users will be able to change default services for music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

Apple released the latest iOS 14 beta to developers earlier today, and one feature that everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived.

As part of the new beta, Apple added the ability for users to set a default music, podcast, and audiobook service on their HomePod. The new feature will allow people to use different services than Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Books as the default service when you ask to play something on your HomePod.

This will open up the HomePod to other music, podcast, and audiobook services like Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, Kindle, and more. All of these users have been, up to this point, only able to get these services to play through their HomePod through AirPlay, a pain for anyone who uses anything outside of Apple's own services.

According to Twitter user ttam110, users will be able to set the default services through the Home app. For each kind of media, you'll be able to choose and Primary Service.

"There it is…The ability to select default services for Music, Podcasts and Audiobooks on HomePod."

See more

Interestingly, this feature is currently limited to the HomePod. Apple is not bringing these defaults over to iOS 14. The only defaults that can be set for the iPhone and iPad will be an email and browser app.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.

4 Comments
  • And yet still can’t use a stereo pair with a Mac, it only casts to one...
  • Funny, I was thinking that too, when I saw HomePod updates. For reference, you can send to HomePod stereo pairs from individual apps, Music, AppleTV+, etc. You just can't set the MAC default output to a stereo pair. Hopefully the fix this.
  • What? Really? Wow. That is completely unacceptable. As is the fact that one HomePod can’t do stereo. You need 2 of them. Absurd.
  • Can you set Audible as the default audiobook player?