JUNE 2019 MACWORLD 107
5.
- MAKE CALLS
Provided you’ve set up Personal Requests,
your HomePod can now make personal
calls. It works best if you have the numbers
and names set up in your Favorites on
your iPhone. So if I say, “Hey, Siri, call
Mom,” Siri will say, “Just to confirm, you’d
like to call Mom Johnson.” If I say yes, she’ll
start making the call. Siri will also respond
if you ask her to dial a specific number.
During a regular iPhone call, you can
also hand off the call to the HomePod so it
acts as a speaker. In the regular iPhone
call interface, press Audio, and then press
the name of your HomePod. The call will
immediately switch over.
- SET ALARMS AND TIMERS
Honestly, I probably use my HomePod for
this more than anything else. It’s essentially
my alarm clock. To set an alarm, say, “Hey,
Siri, wake up in five hours” or “Hey, Siri,
wake me up at 6:30 a.m.” For timers, you
can say, “Hey, Siri, set a timer for 15
minutes,” and off she’ll go. You can even
have multiple alarms and timers going at
the same time, and you can also shut them
all off with a single phrase: “Hey, Siri,
turn off all my alarms or timers.”
- TRANSLATE WORDS AND
PHRASES INTO FOREIGN
LANGUAGES
The HomePod is a great translator. Just
ask Siri, “How do I say ‘I love you’ in
Japanese?” and she’ll give you an answer.
Apple’s voice assistant can translate
complex phrases from a wide range of
commonly spoken languages, and I find
it’s a good way to learn how to pronounce
words if I’ve only seen them on a page.
Just be prepared for some limitations. If
you ask her how to say “I love you” in
Icelandic, she’s not going to be able to
help out.
- STREAM FROM SPOTIFY TO
YOUR HOMEPOD
You can’t ask Siri to play music from
Spotify on the HomePod—which is a
massive bummer if you’re more committed
to Spotify than Apple Music—but it’s still
possible to play music from the competing
service through HomePod.
Fist, open the Spotify app on your
iPhone. Once you have a song playing,
press the “Devices Available” icon in the
lower left (which looks like a monitor and
