How to Change Your Preferred Music App Using Siri in iOS 14.5

[MacRumors]

Apple in the iOS 14.5 beta added a new option to help Siri learn to select your preferred audio apps for listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks, a feature that will undoubtedly be appealing to non-Apple Music fans.

When you ask Siri to play a song, album, podcast, or book, Siri will prompt you for your preferred app. This is not a default setting, but Siri will use this information to learn your app preferences and will select the apps you want to use when you make requests.

There is no specific toggle for you to turn on to select a music service, and Siri may ask again, but this is a way to get Siri to choose the apps you use instead of automatically opening default apps like Apple Music.
How to Choose a Preferred Music Service Using Siri

1. Update to iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 on the iPad.
2. Ask Siri to play an artist, song, or album with a request like "Hey Siri, play Fleetwood Mac."
3. Siri will pop up a list of all music apps you have installed, and will ask "Which app would you like to use?"
4. Choose your preferred music app from the list.
   
5. If asked, confirm that Siri can access data from your music app.
6. From there, Siri will play the music in your app of choice. If you chose Spotify, for example, the music content will play in Spotify.

Siri will tell you which music app was selected when the song plays, and you can also see an icon from the music app in the Now Playing window.

It's been 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 makes the Siri remember your music app of choice so a simple command like "Hey Siri play music" will use your favorite app rather than defaulting to Apple Music. This also works for podcasts, audiobooks, and other audio content.

How to Change Your Default Music Service

At the current time, there's no Siri command or music setting to manually change the default music app that you've set through the Siri There is no option for manually changing your preferred music service as this is meant to be a Siri intelligence feature where Siri learns preferences over time.

You can ask Siri to play music on a different music service and sometimes that will shift the default. So if you've set Spotify as your default but want to change 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 bring up the popup asking you which app you want to use when you make a request so that it can keep current with your preferences.

Article Link: How to Change Your Preferred Music App Using Siri in iOS 14.5

 

[eicca]

I just want the shuffle algorithm to not pick the same ten songs over and over again.

 

[silentdevotion]

I just want the shuffle algorithm to not pick the same ten songs over and over again.

4k songs on my phone and it feels like I have 200 max.

 

[Squuiid]

Can this be done with TIDAL?
Not seen any screenshots showing it.

 

[MrGuder]

You know that Apples music app is getting bad when they now allow you to change the default to another player. 😂
I’m using Marvis Pro and love it’s design!!

 

[robertcoogan]

Be super awesome if I could change the default music app. I could care less about streaming.

I strongly recommend Ecoute. CS Player went to pot recently, so that is as close as I can get to simplicity.

 

[jorisw_]

Would give a lot to have such an option on the Mac.

 

[Cabin]

I just want the shuffle algorithm to not pick the same ten songs over and over again.

I totally agree

 

[Superdude73]

How about HomePod, will it use the music service you've selected on your iPhone or is that separate from this? Would love to use Spotify on my HomePod instead of Apple Music..

 

[MalcolmJID]

Hopefully we'll get a nice easy toggle to this. Would be nice if the phone stopped defaulting to Apple Music when I get in my car as I use Spotify (and don't use Apple CarPlay).

 

[Apple_Robert]

I like the idea of being able to change the default music player. A user should be able to change it via a toggle on the phone, instead of having to use Siri. Not being able to change the default is not good, either. Makes it hard to beta test when Apple doesn't give the user the ability to test necessary actions.

 

[mi7chy]

Finally, less authoritarian and a little taste of freedom. I'd like the ability for it to prompt from a number of different apps that's better suited for the file when a default app hasn't been set.

 

[KSB]

Next add same support for HomePod Siri, or even better, spotify connect

 

[mlabollita]

I found a setting under Siri & Search - if you go down to Spotify, you will see a "Use with Ask Siri" toggle

 

[4jasontv]

I would like an Up Next for music, please. I don't want to manually launch Spotify to listen to something on Spotify. I just want one well designed central app that gives me access to all the music I pay for. I blame Apple. Their music service was supposed to kill Spotify and their terrible app and instead, we have the ability to make it the default app. Rediculous.

 

[iGüey]

What Apple should do is to return to origins. I mean, I felt in love with Apple thanks to the iPod, the originals, the classic ones. It was so simple to play all our music there that actually is the device that vamped the way of Apple to relaunch the company and lead to it’s current success (obviously they took a step by step way). Now is really sad that Apple Music is almost forgotten by Apple. So I truly think they should reengineer the Music App from zero, respecting all aspects that made iPod great and one of the most iconic devices for our generation, at least as a way to honour all customers that have been with Apple since then, supporting Apple to become what today is.

 

[jclo]

I found a setting under Siri & Search - if you go down to Spotify, you will see a "Use with Ask Siri" toggle

It's not quite the same thing. That's the setting for asking Siri to play songs "in Spotify," but that does have to be enabled for the default feature to work.

 

[rom3o]

Tried this and Siri instantly played a song on Spotify without the prompt. Possibly since I don't have Apple Music or other music apps installed that qualify for the list?

 

[goobot]

You know that Apples music app is getting bad when they now allow you to change the default to another player. 😂
I’m using Marvis Pro and love it’s design!!

I think it has to do with anti-trust, but the Apple Music app could be a lot better

 

[Christian 5G]

Took awhile, been waiting for this for a while because I get my apple music library starting to play every time when I get in the car. Happy Spotify user here for 4 years now.

 

[ignatius345]

Finally, less authoritarian and a little taste of freedom. I'd like the ability for it to prompt from a number of different apps that's better suited for the file when a default app hasn't been set.

Hopefully as anti-trust pressure heats up we can get more choices like this.

 

[dynamojoe]

Now I just need an app that I can use to play my music without nagging me to try a free subscription.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

What Apple should do is to return to origins. I mean, I felt in love with Apple thanks to the iPod, the originals, the classic ones. It was so simple to play all our music there that actually is the device that vamped the way of Apple to relaunch the company and lead to it’s current success (obviously they took a step by step way). Now is really sad that Apple Music is almost forgotten by Apple. So I truly think they should reengineer the Music App from zero, respecting all aspects that made iPod great and one of the most iconic devices for our generation, at least as a way to honour all customers that have been with Apple since then, supporting Apple to become what today is.

They're definitely a homogenous service company now and none of their services are best in class either, which is truly the most disappointing thing. They're spread so thin and bound to an arbitrary annual release cycle that nothing gets TLC and proper attention.

 

[rictus007]

In my case it selected a playlist from Spotify automatically …… Siri knows I don’t have Apple Music

 

[medialook]

How about HomePod, will it use the music service you've selected on your iPhone or is that separate from this? Would love to use Spotify on my HomePod instead of Apple Music..

Exactly what I was going to ask. But I guess we are closer than ever...