Despite a closing gap between Apple Music and Spotify, the latter streaming service still holds a considerable lead with millions of users. So it only makes sense that Apple would (finally) add support for Siri voice controls for media playback.
While it might have taken a bit longer than some would’ve liked, it looks like the “Siri truce” between Apple and Spotify has brought that support to customers. At least in beta, for now. The Verge is reporting on Friday that right now Spotify is testing Siri support in the latest beta of the app, which will allow users to simply tell Siri to play a song, an artist, or an album.
Siri will still default to Apple Music if you give the digital assistant a chance, though. That means if you want to use Spotify with Siri, you will need to be specific, and tell the digital assistant “on Spotify” when you request to play a song, album, or artist.
One thing to be aware of, though, is that this works on several Apple-branded devices, including AirPods, but the Apple Watch is not one of them:
While this new feature lets you request Spotify songs with Siri on an iPhone, it does not currently work on an Apple Watch as Apple’s wearable doesn’t have a dedicated Spotify app. Instead, it’s simply a controller for playing songs on other Spotify-enabled devices. Siri simply responds with “I’m sorry, I can’t do that on your Apple Watch” when you try. We haven’t been able to test whether the HomePod now works with Spotify as a result, but it’s unlikely.
That aforementioned truce with Siri was a report that stated Apple and Spotify were trying to work things out so that future iOS 13 users could use Apple’s digital assistant to control music playback with the streaming music app. Of course, iOS 13 simply opens up the SiriKit framework to allow third-party apps access to the assistant. So it’s up to developers to add support for media playback controls via Siri — but it’s at least baked into the software at this point.
And of course, Spotify has been rallying against Apple for quite some time now, blaming the company of anti-competitive behavior tied to unfair Apple Store fees and subscription-related details.
As far as when this feature will roll out to the public, that remains to be seen. Spotify doesn’t have a date to announce just yet, but hopefully it’s soon.
Are you looking forward to this?