What appeared to be one of the most interesting features of iOS 14.5 ended up working a little differently than it originally looked.
Last month, Redditors found that iOS 14.5 beta introduced a new menu when a user asked Siri to play music. This menu offered alternative applications for playing music, including Spotify, instead of using Apple Music. In some cases, Siri would play music in the same non-Apple Music app the next time you ask, though not every time.
Like Gizmodo reported at the time, sometimes Siri played the song on Spotify, for example, if requested, but sometimes on Apple Music. Other times, Siri displayed the same menu again to select an application. It looked like this could be a new feature for selecting a different standard music app, as Apple recently allowed users to change your pattern browser and email applications on iOS 14. But now, it seems that is not the case.
TechCrunch reported Thursday that Apple clarified that the new menu is actually a function of Siri to learn your habits and improve your experience over time. Quoting Apple, TechCrunch reported that the app you selected did not become your new standard, as was suspected, which explains why the same menu continued to appear occasionally during testing, even after a non-Apple Music app was selected.
The feature being a function of Siri to learn your listening preferences also explains why podcast apps have also appeared in this menu. Since there was no option in the menu settings to define an alternative default music application, as there are for browsers and email clients, it makes sense that the new menu is more broadly focused on understanding your listening habits.
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Apple confirmed the functionality of the Siri feature. Spotify no return immediately a request for comment.
Interestingly, the menu that appeared on the original iOS 14.5 public beta it seemed to have disappeared in public beta 2 before returning to public beta 3. Again, however, no option to officially change the music app appeared in the settings, so while it can sometimes save non-Apple music listeners, it is not a foolproof solution to avoid Apple’s music service if you use Siri commands to play your music.
Sorry, Spotify users. It looks like we’re still stuck with Apple Music for now.
Added confirmation from Apple.