My Original HomePod Will Have life in it yet

Tim Hardwick reports today for MacRumors on the HomePod Software 27 features and compatibility. The big feature is support for AutoMix, which Hardwick says is “Apple’s AI-powered Apple Music feature that blends songs using matching key and tempo.”

“Apple says it has improved AutoMix’s underlying algorithms to generate new transition types, making for more seamless blends between tracks, so this should also benefit the newly introduced feature for HomePod,” Hardwick said of the enhanced AutoMix. “Running Apple’s current HomePod Software 26, the AutoMix feature in Apple Music is not available on HomePod. Users running the existing software only have access to the crossfade feature that improves transitions between songs.”

More exciting personally is news the new OS supports the OG HomePod. The smart speaker, released in 2018, runs an A8 chip—the same silicon which powered the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus—and I’ve been using the very same original HomePod (in white) since it came out. It’s perched on a cart stationed next to my desk, and I use it every day via AirPlay (from my Mac) to listen to music and podcasts. The HomePod still looks, and sounds, phenomenal in 2026. Ditto for the blue HomePod mini in my bedroom, which also gets the update later this year. The HomePod “runs a custom, slimmed-down version of tvOS,” according to Gemini, with the 2020 transition “[streamlining] integration with the Apple TV and support advanced smart-home features.”

On a related note, the first-generation Apple TV 4K from 2017 won’t get tvOS 27.