iPhone music fans rejoice: Siri might finally speak to Spotify

[sincity]

It’s no secret that there’s fierce competition between Apple and Spotify for dominance over the music streaming space, but if recent reports are to be believed, the two companies are looking to compromise for the sake of their users.

Using Siri to play music on an Apple device has, thus far, been sorely missing the ability to pull up anything via Spotify – an inability intended to encourage more iPhone, iPad and Apple Home devices to use the native Apple Music service instead.

As reported by The Information, however, the two tech companies are in discussions to allow Spotify functionality via the Siri voice assistant, “according to three people familiar with the discussions”.

• Apple Music vs Spotify: the music streaming titans go head-to-head
• Apple is ordering up exclusive podcasts to take on Spotify and Amazon: report
• Spotify boasts twice as many paid subscribers as Apple Music

Earlier in the year, Spotify filed an official complaint with the European Commission over anti-competitive practices put in place by Apple. This was an extensive allegation and included many examples of behavior that blocked Spotify and other music streaming services from fairly competing with Apple Music.

While there’s no word whether any of these other complaints are being addressed in the reported discussions, the Siri compatibility issue is apparently being looked at in relation to new tools (additions to SiriKit) that Apple is providing to audio app developers in order to integrate with its voice assistant.

• Apple to be investigated by European Commission for anti-competitive behavior

If the source is to be believed, Apple Music will still remain the default option when asking Siri to play music, but presumably you’ll be able to specify the use of Spotify in the voice command.

While it’s not a sure thing – expecting Siri to start playing nice with Spotify – it could come with the launch of iOS 13, which is the first iteration of the operating system to feature the updated version of SiriKit being discussed.

• Got AirPods? You can soon share songs with a friend thanks to SiriKit

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/TR3We3atRu8