With AirPlay 2, Apple fans can now create groups of speakers around their home. Rather than just asking Siri to play music on single HomePod in one room, they can also ask her to play the music to a collection of speakers such as "upstairs" or "everywhere". The music can also be controlled from iOS devices, the Apple TV and desktop iTunes running on a PC or Mac.

With Siri at your beck and call, your music can also follow you around the house by simply asking "Hey Siri, move the music to the kitchen", or alternatively you can say "play the music to the kitchen" to add the kitchen to the current speaker group; two tricks her smart assistant rivals are yet to learn.

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Until now, Apple fans could only use the original AirPlay format to take advantage of multi-room audio when streaming from iTunes running on a PC or Mac, not from a mobile device.

Like the original AirPlay format, AirPlay 2 will also be built into a range of third-party wireless speakers and amplifiers from the likes of Sonos, Bang & Olufsen, Bose, Pioneer, Denon and Marantz. This allows Siri and Apple devices to stream music to these speakers, plus they can be included in AirPlay 2 speaker groups.

Right now Amazon's Alexa smart assistant can also control third-party speakers like Sonos, while you can't ask Google Assistant via Google Home speaker to play music to a Sonos speaker. This might change when Sonos enables Google Assistant support in the near future.

There is no word from Apple as to whether the AirPlay-compatible AirPort Express wireless extender with receive an AirPlay 2 update.

The HomePod's other key update with iOS 11.4 is support for accessing calendars via Siri, letting users talk to the HomePod to check their schedule and add new appointments to their calendar.