Posted By Paul Kafasis on February 20th, 2018

Apple’s new HomePod speaker is now out in the wild and it’s generating plenty of buzz.¹ The device sounds great, but plenty of folks have noticed just how tied to Apple’s ecosystem it is. Thankfully, our home audio streaming tool Airfoil already works great with the HomePod. With Airfoil, you can send any audio from your Mac or PC to the device.

Today, we’ve got a great update to Airfoil for Mac which provides full compatibility with the HomePod, as well as several other updates and improvements. Read on for more details about Airfoil for Mac 5.7, or just grab the latest version right here!

Send Any Audio to the HomePod

Audio playback from the HomePod itself is entirely tied to Apple’s ecosystem (specifically, Apple Music and iCloud Music Library). If you use Spotify or any other audio streaming service, Airfoil is here to help. Just play your desired audio on your Mac, then use Airfoil to send it along. While the HomePod lacks a line input port, anything you can play on or through your Mac can be passed wirelessly to the device.

Perfect Your Audio With Airfoil’s Equalizer

Airfoil includes a built-in equalizer that lets you tweak your audio to get it just right. The HomePod sounds great, but you may wish to tone down its bass. Airfoil’s “Bass Reducer” preset is a great place to start:

Of course, if you want to go the other direction and really feel the music, the Bass Booster preset can help. Airfoil’s equalizer includes almost two dozen presets, and you can create and save custom presets as well.

Control Supported Sources from the HomePod

Airfoil for Mac can even receive direction directly from the HomePod. That means you can use “Hey Siri” or the volume buttons to adjust playback levels. Even better, you can pass playback commands from the HomePod through Airfoil and on to supported sources. A single tap on the top of the HomePod will toggle play/pause, a double-tap will skip to the next track, and a triple-tap will jump back. Addressing Siri with these same commands works as well.

Send to Multiple HomePods, in Sync

If you’re fortunate enough to have two (or more) HomePods, you can use Airfoil to send to all of them at once, with playback happening in sync. Airfoil has long been able to play audio to multiple devices in sync, and playback to the HomePod is no exception. Apple has touted multi-speaker sync as part of their delayed AirPlay 2 protocol², but it’s already possible today using Airfoil.

Send to All Sorts of Devices

Of course, wireless audio isn’t limited to the HomePod, or even just to AirPlay-compatible devices from Apple and others. With Airfoil, you can send audio to thousands of different devices, thanks to its additional support for Bluetooth and Chromecast hardware. Your house may already have multiple devices just waiting to help you rock out.

Much More to Find in Airfoil for Mac 5.7

In addition to improvements for the HomePod, Airfoil for Mac 5.7 has new support for enhanced metadata and remote control of Downcast for Mac. An enhanced experience will also be provided with web-based audio when using BeardedSpice to play music from supported sites in Safari, Chrome, or Vivaldi.

All Airfoil for Mac users should get this update immediately by selecting “Check for Update” from the Airfoil menu, or downloading from the Airfoil page.

If you’re new to Airfoil, you can get started streaming audio to the HomePod and other devices all around your house with the free trial of Airfoil for Mac.

Footnotes:

1. As well as a few ring-shaped stains. ↩︎

2. As discussed in our recent company status report, we’re still awaiting more details from Apple on AirPlay 2. There are many open questions, and for now, few answers. When we know more, we’ll be sure to share with you. ↩︎