Pro tip: Hand off music from iPhone to HomePod with just a tap

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How to use Handoff with HomePod
It's like magic!
Image: Apple

Pro-tip-4 Did you know that you can transfer your music from iPhone to HomePod — and vice-versa — in just a tap? It’s quick and simple and works amazingly well, and we’ll show you how to set it up.

You know how Apple products sometimes ship with small but magical features that remind you they were made by Apple? Well, Handoff on HomePod is one of those features. It’s so simple that it’ll blow your mind.

It works like this: When you’re listening to music on your iPhone, tapping your device on top of your HomePod or HomePod mini instantly sends the song you’re listening to straight to your smart speaker. It also works the other way around.

What’s more, this doesn’t just work with Apple Music; Handoff also supports Spotify and other third-party music services. Here’s how to ensure Handoff is enabled for you.

Send music to HomePod in a tap

To use Handoff with HomePod and HomePod mini, you’ll need to be running iOS 13.2 or later on your iPhone. You can then follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap General, then tap AirPlay & Handoff.
  3. Enable Transfer to HomePod.

That’s it! Now, when you’re playing a song on your iPhone, you can simply tap your device on top of your HomePod (place the back of your iPhone against the HomePod’s touch pad) to transfer the track.

If you’re already listening to music on your HomePod, tapping your iPhone against your smart speaker will transfer the song to your iPhone. The same trick also works with podcasts.

How Handoff works with HomePod

The way Handoff works on HomePod depends on the service you’re using for your audio.

When you’re listening to a song on Apple Music and you transfer it from iPhone to HomePod, HomePod will connect to Apple Music directly to fetch the track and continue playing where you left off.

However, if you’re listening to music on Spotify, Amazon Music or another third-party service, HomePod will instead stream the track from your iPhone using AirPlay, Apple’s proprietary wireless streaming protocol.

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