HomePod, from this year we change: software also available in public beta
A big Coming Soon stands at the top of the homepage of Apple Beta Software Program, and just below the company announces that the public beta of the firmware made official during yesterday’s WWDC 2022 will soon arrive. Unsurprisingly, the public betas of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura and tvOS 16 will soon be available to the “curious”. HomePod Software 16.
The system that governs Apple’s smart little speaker has so far been excluded from the round of public betas, but from this year we change. Apple has three beta programs: the Apple Beta Software Program is the best known of all, if only because it is the one through which public betas are made available for free to anyone, then there is the Apple Developer Program which is instead paid and closed to developers, and finally AppleSeed, if we want the program most exclusive of all.
Access to AppleSeed is reserved only to a circle of developers selected by Cupertino, and is the channel in which the most immature firmware converge, and therefore also the most risky to use. The doors of AppleSeed then open for a handful of “trusted” developers, and the firmware for the HomePod mini also passed through the channel with armored access. Which is now ready to take a double big leap, in Beta Software Program and Developer Program.
Consequently, for the first time, HomePod Software will also be available in beta for users who are curious to experience a preview of the novelties of version number 16. Which? We don’t know them. By clicking on the individual operating systems listed on the Apple beta firmware page, you can access the screens with the news, while clicking on HomePod Software 16 you are redirected to the speaker page.
In short, the good news is already there and comes along with that of a new upcoming HomePod, “spoiled” by the beta of iOS 16. It remains to understand what new software may affect a device as simple as a smart speaker.
