What seemed like one of the most exciting features of iOS 14.5 turns out to work a little differently than it originally appeared.
Last month, Redditors found that the iOS 14.5 beta presented a new menu when a user asked Siri to play music. That menu offered app alternatives for playing music, including Spotify, instead of referencing Apple Music. In some cases, the next time you asked Siri played music in the same non-Apple Music app, but not every time.
Such as Gizmodo reported At the time, Siri sometimes played the song in Spotify if requested, but sometimes in Apple Music. Other times Siri would display the same menu again to select an app. It looked like this could be a new feature, albeit buggy, for selecting a different default music app, as Apple recently allowed users change their default browser and email apps in iOS 14. But now it doesn’t seem to be.
TechCrunch reported On Thursday, Apple made it clear that the new menu is actually a Siri feature for learning your habits and improving your experience over time. Citing Apple, TechCrunch reported that the app you select will not become your new default, as suspected, which explains why the same menu kept popping up intermittently during testing, even after a non-Apple Music app was selected.
The feature that is a feature of Siri that learns your listening preferences also explains why podcast apps also appeared in this menu. Since there was no option in the settings menu to set an alternative default music app, as there is for browsers and email clients, it makes sense that the new menu is more focused on understanding your listening habits.
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Apple has confirmed the functionality of the Siri feature. Spotify didn’t return immediately a request for comment.
Interestingly, the menu that appeared in the original iOS 14.5 public beta seemed to have disappeared in public beta 2 before returning in public beta 3. Again, however, no option has appeared to officially change the music app in the settings, so while it can sometimes save non-Apple Music listeners a step, it’s not surefire solution to Apple’s music service if you use Siri commands to play your music.
Sorry, Spotify users. Looks like we’re still stuck with Apple Music for now.
Added confirmation from Apple.