Siri

In China, you can ask HomePod to tell you a story

HomePod in China includes an interesting storytelling feature for children, unavailable elsewhere, that permits kids to ask the Siri assistant to tell them a story.

HomePod became available in China last Friday, January 18, but this feature was tucked away as a side-note in Apple's press release announcing HomePod's debut in China.

“In China, Siri on HomePod also offers storytelling for children, just say 'Hey Siri, tell me a story',” reads the announcement.

The feature is also being advertised on Apple's HomePod webpage in Chinese, but no further information is provided as to how this works and what the limitations are, if any.

At any rate, this isn't the only China-specific features for the Siri speaker—with the new Artist of the Week program, for instance, Apple Music on HomePod showcases newly discovered talent across greater China.

New artists from mainland China include Corsak, Chace, Lucie Cheung, Gong, Dean Ting and Lu Xianghui while the popular playlists include "The A-List International Pop," "Today’s Hits," 'Best of the Week," "The A-List Mandopop" and "Mandopop Replay", containing recent Mandopop hits from the past five years.

HomePod is available in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, China and Hong Kong in White and Space Gray.

Pin your favorite apps to the Siri Suggestions widget with AppsSiriPin

Apple designed iOS’ Siri Suggestions widget to display recommended apps based on your usage habits. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could configure the Siri Suggestions widget to display the apps you wanted to see the most?

Well stop drooling, because a free jailbreak tweak called AppsSiriPin by iOS developer Julio Verne lets you choose which apps appear in iOS' Siri Suggestions widget.

Shortcuts Focus: getting Dark Mode on virtually any website

Darkened interfaces look good in apps, not so much on websites. The problem is, web content remains a major source of visual inconsistency as far as the popular Dark Mode feature is concerned. Thankfully, you can get a Dark Mode-alike environment on almost any website thanks to a handy Dark Mode V2 shortcut for your iPhone and iPad.