With the release of iOS 14.5, Apple has also added an option to set your preferred music player. At first, it was believed that the company is adding the option to change the default music player in iOS. However, that’s not exactly the case, as clarified by Apple later on. Nonetheless, the feature is still good enough and solves a major pain point with iOS.
As Apple describes it, a new feature in iOS 14.5+ aims to make Siri smarter by automatically playing back music from the streaming service that you prefer.
It is already possible to play music on Spotify, Tidal, and other music services using Siri — you need to add “on Spotify,” etc., at the end. However, this new feature makes things simpler as you need to say, “Hey Siri, play music from ‘xxx’ artist,” and Siri will start playing music from your preferred music streaming service.
Read: iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 Features: What’s New
Since you are not exactly setting any music player as the default, Siri will at some point in the future again ask you to select your favorite music streaming service. Also, there’s no setting in iOS 14.5 from where you can change the default music app as one can do with email and browser apps. So, once you set Spotify or YouTube Music as your preferred music streaming service, you will have to use it until Siri again asks you the question.
Nonetheless, the feature is still good enough and basically lets you select a third-party streaming app as the default music app on your iPhone. This will make it easier to control music playback using Siri on your iPhone and your Apple Watch.
How to Set Your Preferred Music Streaming App on iPhone Using Siri
Step 1: On your iPhone, ask Siri to play music from your favorite album or artist — “Hey Siri, play music from Justin Beiber.”
Step 2: Siri will show a pop-up asking you “Which app would you like to use” and display various music streaming apps on your iPhone. Select the one that you want primarily use to listen to music.
Step 3: You might need to confirm and give Siri access to data from that app. After that, Siri will play music from whatever app you select.
Once this process is done, you can say, “Hey Siri, play music,” and it will start playing music from your preferred music streaming app. Likewise, you can ask Siri to play music from your favorite artist or album on Spotify, Deezer, etc., without having to mention the service name explicitly. If you don’t use Apple Music and have not subscribed to it, this feature will make your life slightly easier.
