The Spotify-Siri integration that Apple users have been asking for is here

We’ve got some good news for those who use Spotify on Apple devices: The latest Spotify beta release has built-in support for Siri, which means you can now keep your phone in your pocket (or wherever it lives) and use your voice to ask for your music.

As a beta, however, there are some caveats and a few restrictions. First, Siri support for third-party music services is an iOS 13-only feature. If you own an iPhone 6 or older phone, or any of the older iPads that aren’t getting the latest version of Apple’s mobile software, this won’t work. Second, it appears to only work on devices that have the Spotify app. You can’t use it to get Siri to play Spotify on your Apple Watch, according to The Verge, because at the moment there’s no Apple Watch Spotify app.

Plus, as you might expect with a feature that’s still in beta, it’s not capable of fulfilling all of your Spotify wishes. Podcasts, for instance, can’t be requested from Siri. Nonetheless, Siri seems to be content to honor other Spotify requests, even via Apple’s AirPods, as long as they’re restricted to albums, playlists, or songs — and as long as you remember to tell Siri you want them to play “on Spotify.”

We’ve been anticipating these new features for a while now, ever since Apple announced that iOS 13 would be opening up Siri to more and more apps, including third-party music services. It’s an important feature for Apple to launch now, especially as Amazon starts to seriously encroach on three of Apple’s chosen turfs: True wireless earbuds with a voice assistant (Echo Buds), high-fidelity wireless smart speakers (Echo Studio), and of course the big one: Music services (Amazon Music HD). Amazon has always been open to working with third-party services — in fact, it’s the biggest reason why Alexa has proven so popular — but Amazon also lets you set your preferred music service as the default for Alexa interactions. So far this is something Apple has refused to do on any Siri-powered device, including the HomePod.

Is this Spotify-Siri integration the start of a doors-wide-open approach to third parties at Apple, or is it just the company’s way of doing what it must to stay competitive? We expect Spotify will release this beta functionality to its general subscriber base in the coming weeks, and we’ll let you know when that happens.

Editors’ Recommendations