One of the HomePod’s best features was actually the result of a bug
Apple Music users on the ‘Individual’ plan have lost the ability to play different songs on a HomePod and an iPhone or Mac device at the same time − a feature that has come to be known as ‘parallel streaming’.
Why? It appears that parallel streaming was never actually supposed to be open to Apple Music users with ‘Individual’ accounts. Instead, it was only meant to be open to ‘Family’ plan subscribers.
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“Today I discovered an issue: When I tried to listen to different music on my iPhone, while my wife was listening on the homepod in the living room, the music on the homepod stopped,” Redditor nizzlebeasy posted over the weekend (via 9to5Mac).
“If I start music on my homepod my iPhone stops and tells me that a different device is using the account. I reset my homepod last week to change the wifi, so I [thought] this might have caused the issue.
“I called Apple and the employee told me the parallel streaming would have been a bug which has been fixed, so that from now on parallel streaming on the homepod and a second device over the same apple ID is not possible.”
Other users have run into the same issue over recent days, and have been told the same thing by Apple.
It’s an unusual case, which is made all the more bizarre by the fact it took so long for Apple to realise it had made a mistake. A mistake that made Apple Music and the HomePod significantly more appealing.
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Now, in order to take advantage of parallel streaming, you need to upgrade from the £9.99 per month Individual Apple Music plan to the £14.99 per month Family plan.
Have you lost access to parallel streaming? Would you pay an extra £5 a month to get it back? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.