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After years of being forced to use Apple services on the iPhone by default, those restrictions are finally easing a bit. As MacRumors noted earlier today, the beta of iOS 14.5 appears to allow you to set default third-party music services with Siri. This means that you can ask Siri to play a particular song or album and it will go straight to Spotify or YouTube Music. Currently, Siri only searches for and plays items of the music you have in the Apple Music app, whether it’s your own song collection or the Apple Music subscription catalog.
It seems that after installing iOS 14.5, Siri will ask you which music service you want to use when you ask it to play a song. It then asks for permission to access data from the music app of your choice, and then starts playing. After that it will play from that service by default.
It’s worth noting that you can currently tell Siri to play music from other services, but you just need to specify where you want it to be played each time. Otherwise, it assumes you are asking about Apple Music. For the millions of people using other music apps on their iPhone, it will definitely make their lives easier.
This isn’t the first time Apple has allowed users to switch between default services – iOS 14 also added the ability to set different browsers and email apps as their default. Prior to launch in September, Safari and Apple Mail were the default options, with no way to change them. Apple also added the ability to change the default music service on its HomePod speakers late last year, though Pandora is currently the only app to have added HomePod integration. Given the company’s antitrust control, allowing other apps and services to be set to default might be about mitigating some of the heat as much as it’s good for users.
iOS 14.5 released in beta last week and has some important new features in addition to support for this music app. Most notable is that iPhone users with an Apple Watch will be able to unlock their phone using Face ID even if they are wearing a face mask. It’s unclear when iOS 14.5 will be ready for everyone, but 14.4 was released only a few weeks ago, so it will likely be around the end of the month or early March.
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