Gaana, a music streaming service, now supports hands-free streaming on the Apple HomePod mini using voice commands. The Apple HomePod mini is priced at Rs. 9,900 in India and enables direct streaming of Apple Music by default, but the addition of Gaana expands Siri’s capabilities by adding a new streaming service and its complete library. Gaana offers a library of more than 45 million tracks in 25 languages, with a focus on music in Indian languages.
Apple HomePod Mini Now Supports Gaana
Gaana’s service is accessible in both free and paid subscriptions, with both supporting hands-free streaming on the HomePod mini.
The service must first be activated on an iOS smartphone via the Gaana app. And it must be done on a smartphone that is linked to the HomePod mini via Apple’s Home app. Users must go to Settings > Connect with HomePod to set up Gaana to stream on the HomePod mini, and then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the task.
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After that, users can use voice commands to have the HomePod mini play songs from Gaana; such as “Hey Siri, play (track name) on Gaana”. This is a significant shift since the HomePod range previously only allowed for hands-free audio streaming via Apple’s own Apple Music service.
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Other services such as Spotify and Amazon Music can be streamed. But this requires the use of a smartphone as the controller and an AirPlay connection between the smartphone and the HomePod mini.
The addition of direct hands-free streaming of Gaana on the HomePod mini shows that Apple is expanding up its ecosystem. This indicates that additional services may soon follow in the future.