What you need to know
- Pandora has added support for HomePod and Siri.
- The integration will allow you to use Siri to ask your HomePod to stream the service.
- The company added support ahead of schedule and before the HomePod mini launch.
Reported by 9to5Mac, Pandora has added support for HomePod and Siri ahead of the launch of the HomePod mini. The streaming service was one that the company highlighted as having support "in the coming months" during its "Hi, Speed" event in October. While many thought that this might mean waiting until 2021, it appears that at least Pandora has added support before the new smaller HomePod even went live for preorders.
Today's news, as pointed out in the report, is not necessarily surprising as Pandora has been quick to add support for many of Apple's features. It even beat Spotify to add offline playback and music streaming for its Apple Watch app.
Pandora has a great track record of quickly implementing Apple's latest features like Siri Shortcuts, streaming, and offline playback support on Apple Watch to name a few. Now the company is an early adopter of integration with HomePod as Apple is about to expand the lineup with HomePod mini.
As noted in the report, you'll still need to specifically indicate you want to stream something from Pandora when using Siri with the HomePod. For example, rather than saying "play Adele," you'll need to say "play Adele on Pandora." Saying the first command will play music through Apple Music, as Apple has not yet added support to change your default music service to the HomePod.
Pandora's integration with HomePod is simple to set up through the iOS app and easy to use with Siri. You'll need to specify that you want to listen to content on Pandora in your Siri request as Apple hasn't opened up HomePod to change the default music service. But this is great integration that's smooth to use. It means you can use ask your HomePod to play artists, songs, playlists, and podcasts from Pandora.
In order to set up Pandora for use with HomePod, you'll need to update to the latest version of the Pandora app on the App Store and connect it to your Home and HomePod in the settings section of the app.
