Apple is giving users another good reason to get the latest public beta for a test drive.
With hawk eyes Redditors using the public beta of iOS 14.5 I noticed that when asking Siri to play music, the assistant will ask the user to select the music app they would like to use to play the song or artist. Normally, Siri is the default Apple Music application when an application is not specified. But, as Gizmodo confirmed, Siri’s request, for example, to “play Phoebe Bridgers” in iOS 14.5 will display a menu with options for Apple Music, Spotify, Podcasts and, for some reason, Books.
Reddit user matejamm1, who shared a screenshot of the feature and installed other music apps, also saw them on this screen.
If Spotify is selected from this menu, Siri seems to be the default for that app the next time it’s asked to play music – but the function is pretty buggy. When I tested the option to set my default music app as Spotify in iOS 14.5, Siri sometimes defaulted to Spotify, sometimes opened Apple Music, and sometimes displayed the same menu to select which app I wanted to play the song or music from. However, colleagues who don’t run the public beta don’t have this option when they asked Siri to play music, so it’s something.
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It’s just one more reason to explore Apple’s latest public beta, especially for those of us who aren’t keen on Apple services. Recently, the company has slowed down, forcing us to use them. Last year, iOS 14 introduced the ability to change your preference email and browser applications to non-Apple services such as Chrome and Gmail. Possibility to change other default options would be welcome.
Another notable feature of the public beta of iOS 14.5 is the ability to use an Apple Watch for unlock your iPhone while wearing a mask. Sure, it can only save you a few seconds spent manually punching the access code, but listen, the process of unlocking your phone while wearing a mask is a little less annoying. I tested it in the last few days and found that it works well.
In 2021, we are already saving time and broadcasting better. A tiny victory, but I’ll take it.