HomePod Find my iPhone, multiple timers: New HomePod features announced

[ipedro]

At the end of the Gather Round event dedicated to AppleWatch and iPhone, Tim Cook made a short mention of improvements to HomePod. You’ll now be able to ask your HomePod “Where’s my iPhone?” and have it ping. Multiple timers are also being introduced. Previously announced at WWDC, you’ll also be able to make calls directly from your HomePod and use Shortcuts to significantly expand the number of possible things Siri can do on HomePod.

 

[The Game 161]

The phone calls bit is what I’m looking forward to

 

[yass31]

Hope the music icon means
- improvements for music : support of EQ

 

[Shanghaichica]

It’s coming out today. With the HomePod I’m really happy with the HomePod. Only thing I’d like them to add now is more control over the Apple TV. For example being able to request TV shows you own from iTunes and later on from places like Netflix. Otherwise I’m happy with the HomePod features.

 

[Solver]

Hope the music icon means
- improvements for music : support of EQ

No EQ necessary. Apple know what sound settings all want.
/s

 

[Shanghaichica]

No EQ necessary. Apple know what sound settings all want.
/s

I thought the music icon was about searching for songs by lyrics with Siri?

 

[blaugrana69]

Any chance of accesing Radio through Siri Shortcuts ? For example the BBC iPlayer Radio app or failing that Tunein.

 

[FierceCorgi]

Any chance of accesing Radio through Siri Shortcuts ? For example the BBC iPlayer Radio app or failing that Tunein.

It looks like it is possible once the developer adds support for it. From the MacStories review:

iOS 12 features a subset of app shortcuts dubbed media shortcuts. Like other types of shortcuts, they are donated by apps to the system, which can recommend them in Search and on the lock screen; media shortcuts can also be assigned custom Siri phrases by users. What makes media shortcuts unique is that they can launch video apps into their native players or start audio playback in the background; if the media app handling the shortcut supports AirPlay 2, this also means audio can be streamed directly on a HomePod on the same local network.

Apparently, you can't send arbitrary commands to an app, but you could assign a shortcut to some specific content (like maybe a TuneIn station?) and then trigger it with Siri.