Apple in the beta of iOS 14.5 has added a new option to help Siri learn to select your favorite audio apps for listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks, a feature that will no doubt appeal to non-fans of Apple Music.
When you ask Siri to play a song, album, podcast or book, Siri will ask you for your favorite app. This is not a default setting, but Siri will use this information to know your app preferences and select which apps you want to use when making requests.
There is no specific toggle to activate to select a music service, and Siri can ask again, but it is a way for Siri to choose which apps you use instead of automatically opening default apps. like Apple Music.
How to choose a favorite music service using Siri
- Update to iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 on the iPad.
- Ask Siri to play an artist, song, or album with a request like “Hey Siri, play Fleetwood Mac.”
- Siri will display a list of all the music apps you have installed and ask “Which app do you want to use?” “
- Choose your favorite music app from the list.
- If prompted, confirm that Siri can access your music app data.
- From there, Siri will play the music in the app of your choice. If you choose Spotify, for example, the music content will be played in Spotify.
Siri will tell you which music app was selected while playing the song, and you can also see a music app icon in the Now Playing window.
It was possible to play music from other services by clarifying which service you want Siri to use, such as “Hey Siri, play music on Spotify”, but the change implemented in iOS 14.5 allows to Siri to remember your music app of choice, so a simple One command such as “Hey Siri play music” will use your favorite app rather than defaulting to Apple Music. It also works for podcasts, audiobooks, and other audio content.
How to change your default music service
At present, there is no Siri command or music setting to manually change the default music app you set through Siri There is no option to manually change your favorite music service because it is an intelligence function Siri where Siri learns preferences over time.
You can ask Siri to play music on another music service and sometimes it will change the default. So if you have set Spotify as default but want to go back to Apple Music, you can say “Hey Siri, play Fleetwood Mac on Apple Music”, or vice versa, “Hey Siri, play Fleetwood Mac on Spotify. “
Siri will also occasionally display a pop-up asking you which app you want to use when you make a request so that it can stay up to date with your preferences.
