New HomePod Details Emerge

The HomePod was conspicuously absent from yesterday’s Apple keynote. However, the company has quietly updated the HomePod’s product page with new details, as spotted by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac.

According to Mayo,

Firstly, the radio stations feature is launching on HomePod on September 30. However, the previously-announced multi-user support and the music handoff features are not coming in September. Apple simply says ‘later this fall’. They also teased a new white noise mode that they hadn’t talked about before…

The new Ambient Sounds feature will allow users to play sounds including “ocean waves, forest birds, rainstorms, and more.”

Although Apple doesn’t say so, the September 30th timing for radio station support suggests that the feature is dependent on the release of iOS and iPadOS 13.1, which is due for release that same day. The company’s OS release schedule is far more complicated this year than in the recent past. For those interested in all the product launch and OS update release dates, we’ve collected a complete list of all dates on MacStories.