Apple releases HomePod 13.2 update and withdraws it hours later

While tvOS 13, iPadOS 13 and iOS 13 were all released around two months ago, Apple failed to release an update for its smart speaker, the HomePod.

At the time, the firm said that it was still working on advanced HomePod features such as Handoff and multi-user support.

After the release of iOS 13.2 for the iPad and iPhone, however, Apple apparently quite mistakenly believed that it was ready to bring out a major iOS update for the HomePod range.

It went ahead and released iOS 13.2 for the HomePod on Monday afternoon.

It appeared to have all the features that the company promised earlier, but sadly it also came with a special bonus that took most owners by surprise: immediately after installing the new version of iOS, many HomePod users reported that their smart speakers became completely non-functional.

MacRumors was the first to report the issue.

Many people on its forums as well as on Reddit reported that their HomePods were no longer working after the update.

With HomePods having no user interface, it was hard to establish exactly what went wrong.

Some owners reported a ‘white swirl’ above their HomePod, while others said that it just went into a never-ending reboot loop.

These HomePods can’t be reset, and the operating system cannot be reinstalled.

Some people had the problem right after the update was installed, but others only noticed it when they tried to fix their HomePod because some of the new features did not work as they should.

Others speculated that the problem might have developed because they updated their HomePod before installing iOS 13.2 on their iPhone.

Some people who have multiple HomePods said that all of them died after the update.

Apple summarily withdrew the update a couple of hours after releasing it, and advised owners who had a problem to contact Apple Support instead of trying to fix it themselves.