While it wasn't perhaps the Apple HomePod 2 reveal that we'd hoped for, the Cupertino company didn't shy away from giving a quick update to its first smart speaker, the original HomePod.
The main addition is that of new supported languages that the Siri smart helper can understand on the HomePod. Support for Spanish comes to the US, Mexican and (of course) Spanish markets, while Canadian French is introduced for Canadian Apple fans.
You'll also now be able to search by lyrics when requesting songs from Apple Music using voice commands – a feature that brings more smart parity between the HomePod and the Amazon Echo.
Lost phones and caught calls
Elsewhere, the HomePod now support the tracking of multiple named timers (say, one for when to take the chicken out of the oven, another for when to leave to catch your bus), and brings the Find My iPhone feature to the smart speaker, letting you ask Siri to ping your phone to make it beep if it's down the side of a sofa.
The HomePod can now finally make and receive calls directly too, understanding spoken numbers or picking up contacts from your iPhone's address book. As you'd expect, it can grab incoming calls from an iPhone too, redirecting the audio and mic to the speaker.
Other than that, it's the HomePod that you already know and love. We'll keep you posted as to when, if ever, it receives a true follow up hardware revision.
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