Kudos to Chris Ryan for the extensive and frequently updated CBC [Radio], HomePod, and Siri.
Siri HomePod
Apple is supposed to be about things that just work, but talking to Siri is more like finding the right incantation for a spell, a bunch of people all across Canada trying to say Wingardium Leviosa just right.
Siri is a much thinner layer of intelligence than you might expect.
Basically it searches Apple Music, and failing that, "TuneIn, iHeartRadio and Rogers Radio" (from Apple Canada - HomePod mini Tech Specs).
It's looking for an exact match. Anything other than an exact match would require coordination about top tasks between Apple (US, Canada, Siri, HomePod, content divisions) and TuneIn, and the specific content provider e.g. CBC.
When a Canadian says "Hey Siri, play CBC Radio", Apple needs to code a top task that checks your location and plays the closest CBC Radio One station. That's what people expect to happen.
What actually is happening is Siri has no clue about CBC Radio, and so you have to speak an exact match to a TuneIn channel (which also means you get a TuneIn jingle before it starts playing, and TuneIn inserts ads into the audio stream).
As a top task Siri should also fail gently, with something like "I think you are trying to listen to CBC Radio One?", but instead it often returns bizarrely improbable mismatches when it fails.
However it seems that with voice assistants / voice control in general, no one can be bothered to fix them, which is probably the usual mix of Canada being underserved plus voice assistants not turning out to be the revenue-generating category killer the vendors had hoped for.
Also note that Siri HomePod behaves differently for unauthenticated and voice recognized users.
CBC essentially killed CBC Radio Two, renaming it CBC Music and changing it from classical music to contemporary, at which point I stopped listening to it. I didn't actually know they had changed the name. There is no more classical music station with hosts, there's just a long list of (probably barely curated) classical playlists jumbled in with CBC's dozens of other Music Playlists.
Your best bet for CBC Radio, in theory, should be to get the TuneIn list of CBC stations and ask for them by name, being mindful that TuneIn also streams CBC Podcasts. TuneIn's list is not comprehensive, e.g. although CBC Music Ottawa exists (along with many other locations), the only TuneIn options for CBC Music are Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Halifax, and Winnipeg.
October 2, 2023 with HomePod 17, unauthenticated
Here's my experience with HomePod 17.0 on October 2, 2023:
- Hey Siri, play CBC Radio One Ottawa - plays the correct station from TuneIn (with ads inserted)
- Hey Siri, play CBC Music Ottawa - plays (to my considerable amusement) "I've been everywhere" by Johnny Cash
- Hey Siri, play CBC Radio One Halifax - plays the station from TuneIn, I didn't listen long enough to double-check the station identification
- Hey Siri, play CBC Music Halifax - plays the station from TuneIn, I didn't listen long enough to double-check the station identification
If you're under the impression that CBC Radio Two or CBC Classical still exists, it fails in various ways.
- Hey Siri, play CBC Radio Two Classical - Siri says "playing classical station" (I don't know what station it's playing, definitely not CBC)
- Hey Siri, play CBC Radio Classical - plays, rather improbably, Hard Rock Station
You Can Fix This With Shortcuts for Recognized Users
I haven't tested it yet, but in theory if you activate a long chain of required and intrusive iOS capabilities, Siri will recognize your voice as a specific Apple ID user, and will play Shortcuts by name from your iPhone or iPad.
So you could make a Shortcut called Play CBC Radio One that would do what you actually want (Siri checks Shortcuts first, they override any other matches).
Three Recognized Roads Diverged?
Apple actually has three different technologies for enhancing Siri HomePod for recognized users, and it's not clear to me which approach they are taking:
- SiriKit Media Intents are a generic way to send different media requests including radio and audiobooks to specific apps
- Siri AirPlay lets you tell your device to start AirPlay from a specific app to the HomePod (launching the app and starting it playing, with no user intervention needed)
- The aforementioned Siri Shortcuts can be exposed by apps (e.g. Apple Books provides a Play Audiobook shortcuts endpoint) or coded by you
That being said, the burden should be on Apple, plus the content apps, plus the content providers to make this all work.
I strongly get the feeling that most organizations only care about their app (which in addition to streaming to you, send tons of personal and monetizable information back to the organization continuously), which may explain why Apple has kind of thrown up its hands and just given Siri HomePod direct AirPlay control over apps in iOS / iPadOS / HomePod 17.
Google Assistant
Kudos to Peter Rukavina for investigating Google Assistant's ability to play CBC Radio in his post OK Google, play CBC Radio One.
It is basically the same muddle.
Also note that Google Assistant behaves differently depending whether it is on a Google device (a Nest or Google Home) or on another vendor's device, such as the Sonos. Google Assistant on Sonos has a long list of basic functionality issues that have been reported but not fixed for years, including setting a sleep timer and playing BBC Radio 4.
For more on this topic, see my categories Voice Control or HomePod or Smart Speaker.
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