AirPlay 2 With HomePod Stereo Pairs And Multi-Room Arrives In iOS 11.4
Apple has launched AirPlay 2 in iOS 11.4, adding HomePod stereo pair support along with multi-room audio streaming. The new version of AirPlay 2 comes along with launch dates for HomePod in three new countries – Canada, France, and Germany – bringing the total number of places you can buy the Siri-powered smart speaker to six.
It's reasonable to say that AirPlay 2 will change the HomePod experience. There'll be two big improvements to the connected speaker that the update brings. First, there's support for stereo pairing.
Rather than just using a single HomePod, owners with two will now be able to virtually link them together. Each speaker will handle one channel, either left or right. The result will be a wider soundstage, Apple says, with each HomePod using its spatial awareness of the room to automatically adjust its own playback so that it's balanced with its stereo counterpart, in addition to accommodating the acoustic principles of the room itself.
There'll also be a step up in bass performance, Apple promises. Setup will be a simple matter of answering yes to an automatic prompt to pair two speakers which are identified as being in the same room. Any Siri commands, meanwhile, will only be responded to by one of the pair.
The other big improvement will be Multi-Room Audio. So far, HomePod has only supported a single stream per speaker. With AirPlay 2, there'll be support for grouping multiple speakers and playing the same thing in different rooms.
There'll be support for grouping speakers through the iOS Control Center, or by asking Siri. The voice assistant will be able to handle playing music on a per-room basis, to a group of rooms, or on every supported speaker. There'll also be AirPlay 2 multi-room controls in any iOS app.
It won't just be a boon for HomePod, mind. AirPlay 2 is on the roadmap for a number of connected speaker companies, with Bang & Olufsen, Bluesound, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Libratone, Marantz, Marshall, Naim, Pioneer, and Sonos all saying they plan to add support. That will add the ability to group speakers from those companies with your existing HomePod setup, and play the same music through them all, all from Siri commands.
HomePod remains on sale for $349 in the US, and is available in white and space gray. Come June 18, meanwhile, it'll go on sale in Canada, France, and Germany. iOS 11.4 is rolling out today, and HomePod's update will be automatically installed over the next few days or can be manually installed if you're impatient.