Apple HomePods get third-party YouTube Music support

Good news for the dedicated Apple Home folks who use YouTube Music (I know you’re out there!) – you can now integrate the service with your HomePods and ask Siri to play songs with YouTube Music or set the service as your default source. 9to5Google saw a Reddit post from YouTube Music product head Brandon Bilinski announcing the update. Instructions for setting up the integration can be found on a support page for the service.

The list of third-party music services you can integrate with HomePods is still pretty slim. So far, the biggest alternatives to Apple Music that have added this support have probably been Deezer and Pandora. You can finally ask Siri to play music with Spotify on HomePods, but the company still doesn’t support connecting the app to Apple’s speakers.

To connect YouTube Music to your HomePods, you’ll need a YouTube Music or YouTube Premium account. Open the app, tap your user icon in the top right, then go to Settings > Connected apps > Connect to HomePod. Then to set this as default, open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad, tap the settings icon in the top right and go to Home Settings > Your Username (in the People section) > Default Service.

If you don’t see the ‘Connected apps’ option in YouTube Music, don’t worry. I didn’t see that at first either. However, after I force closed the app and reopened it, it was there. You may also need to make sure you have the latest version of the app.