'Parallel' Apple Music streaming on a HomePod and iPhone was apparently not a feature, it was a bug
Apple might not be giving up on the HomePod entirely (at least not yet), but with the company’s music streaming service available on Amazon’s extensive Echo family, it’s getting harder and harder to recommend the Siri-controlled smart speaker.
One thing that may have enticed Apple Music users to pick up one of these arguably high-quality $349 bad boys was a feature unofficially dubbed parallel streaming. This allowed for one track to be played on a HomePod while an iPhone streamed a different song from the same Apple Music account, no family subscription required.
Curiously enough, this was never advertised in any way, shape, or form by Apple, because as it turns out, it was a bug rather than a feature. Yes, really, at least according to a couple of Redditors who contacted customer support after noticing “parallel streaming” was no longer a thing.
Believe it or not, it seems this particular glitch needed almost a full year to be fixed. Either that or Apple somehow only learned of its existence recently, despite many reviewers noticing the functionality before the smart speaker even started shipping to the masses back in February 2018.
Unless something wholly unusual happens and Apple realizes people loved this bug, bringing it back as a bonafide feature, we’re afraid you’ll need to upgrade from an individual music streaming account to a family license if you want to continue playing different tunes on your iPhone and HomePod at the same time.
As things stand, regular $9.99 a month Apple Music subscribers say any attempt to do that ends with one of the two devices going silent. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted, right?
One thing that may have enticed Apple Music users to pick up one of these arguably high-quality $349 bad boys was a feature unofficially dubbed parallel streaming. This allowed for one track to be played on a HomePod while an iPhone streamed a different song from the same Apple Music account, no family subscription required.
Unless something wholly unusual happens and Apple realizes people loved this bug, bringing it back as a bonafide feature, we’re afraid you’ll need to upgrade from an individual music streaming account to a family license if you want to continue playing different tunes on your iPhone and HomePod at the same time.
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