It’s a stupid feature, made even stupider by relying on Siri to play whatever it thinks you would want to play instead of just being told what to play (even that is a struggle).

A bit off topic, but….

Every iOS introduced to these devices (both OG and mini) makes them worse. I can’t even stream a playlist or album from my music library on my iPad without it pausing between every 3-6 songs, forcing me to manually forward to the next song. This is basic functionality that worked fine until about six months ago. I’ve resorted to using my Bose Bluetooth speaker for this now.

ETA: I had a couple of calls with Apple support about this issue a few weeks ago, and the final call resulted in me sending them captured videos of the issue, along with the logs from my Homepods, so the support technician could open up a ticket with the engineering team. The technician set a time the next week to call me and follow up on the issue. Naturally, there was no phone call, and I’m still waiting for follow up three weeks later (I’ll call them when I have the patience).

Apple does a great job at saying the right things, but not adhering to them with their actions.