How to change the default music app on iPhone

Changing the default music app isn't fully rolled out yet, but if you're a fan of third-party music services, you can change the default after updating to iOS 14.5.

Step 1. Update to iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5.

Step 2. Ask Siri to play a song or a certain album.

Step 3. Siri will pop up a list of all the music apps you have installed and you'll be asked 'Which app would you like to use?'

Step 4. Select music service from the list.

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Step 5. If asked, confirm that Siri can access the data from the music app.

Step 6. From there, Siri will play music from the app you selected. For example, if you choose Spotify, the music will play from Spotify.

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Siri will let you know which music app is selected when playing a song, you can see the icon from the music app in the Now Playing window.

Music can be played from other services by clarifying which music service you want to use with Siri, for example, by giving commands like 'Hey Siri, play music on Spotify. However, with iOS 14.5, you only need to give simple commands like 'Hey Siri play music' after you have installed the default music service.

If you don't see the default music service option, you may need to restart your device. Some users reported that this setting could not be found. Maybe because this is beta, perhaps not all users have available this feature.

At this point, you can't set up the feature manually without going through Siri.

You can ask Siri to play music on another music service, and it will sometimes be the default. This is not entirely reliable however.

Hopefully Apple will soon launch a complete version of this feature, like changing the default web browser or email on iOS 14.

Micah Soto

Update 16 February 2021