However, there are some areas where HomePod is limiting. Even though you can use AirPlay to stream music from any service through HomePod, you'll only get all the speaker's benefits if you subscribe to Apple Music ( plans start at $4.99 per month for students and $9.99 per month for individuals). For example, Siri won't be able to tell you detailed information about a song or album unless that song is playing through Apple Music. Secondly, although everyone in your apartment will be able to use the speaker, only the person who sets up HomePod on their iCloud account will be able to send texts, set up reminders, and add notes via voice commands. Google Home and Amazon Echo, meanwhile, can recognize different voices and provide personalized content accordingly. (If you do set up personal notifications on HomePod, these will only be available when you are on the network, so you don't need to worry about your texts being read aloud at home when you are at work. If you don't want them read aloud when you're home, you can go into your HomeKit settings and turn off the notifications.)