My colleague yesterday referenced the fact that Spotify is demanding greater freedoms from Apple, but hasn’t yet taken advantage of the ones already offered to the company. Key among these is the company’s failure to implement Spotify HomePod support.
It seems pretty ridiculous to complain that Apple Music has an unfair advantage over Spotify, while at the same time failing to take advantage of a clear opportunity to partly level the playing field – and keep your HomePod-owning subscribers happy …
Why no Spotify HomePod support?
One complaint originally made by rival streaming music services was that if you asked HomePod to play something, it would automatically do so on Apple Music. There was no way to get it to play music from a rival music service.
The only way to play Spotify through HomePod was to AirPlay from the app, which is a rather clunky three-step process. First, you have to tap the external speaker button. Then, because HomePods don’t show up as native Spotify-enabled speakers, you have to tap AirPlay. Only then can you select the HomePod(s) you want.
Apple fixed this problem way back in 2020. It allowed HomePod owners to specify a third-party music app as the default media player. Once selected, asking a HomePod to play something would automatically be done through that music service.
Pandora wasted no time in taking advantage of this. Spotify, in contrast, failed to do so – and still hasn’t done so more than three years later.
iOS 17 introduced another workaround, allowing HomePod owners to specify a music service as part of their request. You can, for example, tell a HomePod to “play Anna Nalick from Spotify,” but this is still clunky.
Top comment by Tiago Teixeira
I was a Spotify paid user and moved last year to Apple Music exactly because of the lack of HomePod Support. It's unbelievable that they don't yet have that functionality available.
So why, in 2024, does Spotify not support a feature Apple made possible back in 2020? A feature which would give Spotify equal access to HomePod, and would make life easier for Spotify customers who own Apple’s wireless speakers?
Literally the only explanation is that it is engaged in a feud with Apple, and doesn’t want to do anything to cooperate with the company. But in taking this stance, it is damaging its own attractiveness as a music service, and frustrating its HomePod-owning subscribers. It annoys me on a daily basis.
Spotify, please stop with the childishness, and fix this.
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