HomePod Handoff Changes

Although the HomePod has already supported Handoff since last year, the existing feature relied exclusively on Bluetooth proximity detection, and was therefore limited to simply transferring whatever music was currently playing between your iPhone and your smart speaker.

By contrast, the U1-powered Handoff that’s been implemented in the HomePod mini and iOS 14.4 will offer visual, audible, and haptic effects that adjust as you position your iPhone closer to the speaker. Plus, it won’t simply transfer the music outright, but will present you with the option to do so, along with a variety of other controls.

The feature naturally requires the corresponding HomePod Software 14.4 to operate, and while that’s available to a much more limited group of people right now compared to the iOS 14.4 betas, those who were able to test the feature offered some insight into how it worked, but also noted that it was fairly buggy.

According to AppleInsider, however, which also has access to the HomePod Software beta, Apple has significantly polished the experience over the past few weeks. It’s now said to be “much smoother” as opposed to the initial implementation which was quite buggy and unreliable, and buttons that were previously just placeholders now appear to be working properly.