Apple in the iOS 14.5 beta added a new option to change the default music player, a feature that will certainly be appealing to non-Apple Music fans.
Changing music defaults isn’t fully specified yet, but if you’re a beta user who prefers third-party music services, you can set them to Siri’s default after upgrading to iOS 14.5.
How to set up the default music service using Siri
- Upgrade to iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 on iPad.
- Ask Siri to play an artist, song, or album with a request such as “Hey, Siri, play Fleetwood Mac.”
- Siri will display a list of all the music apps you have installed and ask you “Which app do you want to use?”
- Choose your favorite music app from the list.
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- If prompted, confirm that Siri can access the data in your music application.
- From here, Siri will play the music in the application of your choice. If you choose Spotify, for example, music content will play on Spotify.
Siri will tell you which music app was selected when the song was playing, and you can also see a music app icon in the Now Playing window.
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Music from other services could be played 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 makes Siri your default music app such as “Hello Siri plays music” will use your favorite app instead of setting Apple Music by default.
Note that if you do not see the option to select a default music service, you may need to restart your device. Some users have also reported that they have not been able to get the settings on the surface, so not all users may see it in this beta.
How to change the default music service
There are currently no commands or settings for Siri music to manually change the default music application that you have set up through the Siri interface.
You can ask Siri to play music on a different music service, and it will sometimes change the default value. So if you’ve set Spotify as your default but want to switch back to Apple Music, you can say “Hey Siri, tap Fleetwood Mac on Apple Music” or vice versa, “Hey Siri, tap Fleetwood Mac on Spotify.”
Sometimes this will change the default music settings, but it is not entirely reliable. Sometimes you can also reappear the list by asking about different services quickly or by downloading a new music service app, but for now, if you want a hassle-free experience, be sure to set it up in the music service. music to use more often.
Hopefully Apple will be able to embed this feature in future releases, so it’s likely that a switch will eventually occur to set a music app as the default in iOS, similar to how settings work for mail and browser apps. default.