Following the underwhelming response to Apple’s Homepod which basically served more as a highlight to the shortcomings of Apple and Siri in particular, Apple has been making friends.
One notable move by Apple is an update to iOS 13 that will allow siri to accept user commands to control Spotify. This has been a major disadvantage to Spotify for iPhone and other Apple device users.
Spotify launched a formal complaint on this matter to the EU claiming that lack of siri support for Spotify gives unfair advantage to Apple’s Apple Music.
But now with the release of iOS13, Spotify has launched the ability to play music with Apple’s Siri voice assistant on the iPhone and iPad. You can also use Siri to control the app in CarPlay, so now you don’t have to use Apple music..
This new update, more than anything, gives new life to the Homepod because you can now also use AirPlay to play music on your HomePod with voice commands as well. Not being able to use Spotify fully with siri commands on the HomePod was Apple’s maiden smart speaker’s main undoing. Some tech heads even went ahead and labelled it ‘not smart’.
These new developments will continue to fuel the debate of a fierce competition between Spotify and Apple Music as users try to determine which music player will be their default.
Spotify recently announced that it has a user base of 248 million which included 113 million paying subscribers. This basically means it has double the users that Apple music has and that difference can only grow with Spotify’s main setback among Apple heads being lack of Siri support.
Users have overwhelmingly praised Spotify over Apple music for it’s rich library and features. Even when Spotify lacks a few key features like the ability to change your username unless you use workarounds like this one highlighted by Webpro Education. But many will over look the shortcomings when the biggest feature they wanted is now available.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this new development plays out. Apple seems to be making friends with other competitor companies. It seems they have realized the real price is on data rather than hardware.
