This was the most immediate thing I missed from the Sonos ecosystem on first impressions, the ability to have a dedicated app to control and queue up my music.

Most people assume you can only control HomePod via Siri for native playback, or via Airplay from your phone (non-native).

While these are both possible, controlling playback via airplay has a downside; all device audio will be sent to the HomePod. This can be a problem when browsing Instagram, Reddit or Snapchat and having other audio interrupt your listening experience.

Behold Control Centre Controls

Two ways to access controls for HomePod, either Force touch on the music player widget within control centre and scroll down to find your home pod. From here you can skip, play/pause and control volume.

Or press the Airplay button within Apple Music app and instead of tapping on your iPhone and choosing the HomePod as an output, scroll down to choose the HomePod natively. Note, this may take a few seconds to connect depending on your WiFi connection.

The real magic begins when you tap the album artwork, taking you into the Music app, and any actions you take, or music you play/queue will play natively on the HomePod, not via Airplay.

Play music from Spotify, Tidal, Google Music.