HomePod owners can soon turn Apple Music tracks into alarms
Just in time for the release of the HomePod mini.
Like with most smart speakers, you can use Apple’s HomePod as an alarm, but where it currently falls short of other devices with similar functionality is that you can’t use a song instead of a tone for that purpose. Thankfully, that’s about to change. Digging through the latest HomePod beta software, MacRumors found an updated interface for setting up alarms.
It includes the option to use a song from Apple Music as the sound that wakes you up or reminds you that you need to do something. Provided you have an Apple Music subscription, tapping the new “Play Media” option allows you to use any track from your library as an alarm tone. If you don’t have an active Apple Music subscription, the software will prompt you to get one. You also have the option to continue using the default sound.
You can add song alarms to the list of features the HomePod probably should have launched with when it first came out in 2018. But with the HomePod mini on the way, the timing is also perfect in a way. You have to imagine many people, most of them first-time HomePod buyers, will put the new $99 smart speaker on their bedside table. Not having the option to use a favorite song as an alarm would be a weird omission. We don’t have a release date for the new software, but Apple will likely release it alongside the HomePod mini on November 16th.
