iOS 13 will Allow Siri to Directly Integrate with Music Services Such as Spotify

Since Apple opened the API¹ from Siri for developers, a lack has been deeply felt by users and developers of the company’s ecosystem: the ability to integrate the digital assistant to music platforms. Of course, you can create some gamble through the Siri Shortcuts, but until iOS 12 it was not possible to directly control streaming services such as Spotify or Pandora by the wizard. Now, that changes.

Starting with iOS 13, Apple will expand SiriKit (the wizard’s Integration API) to enable just the tool’s connection to third-party music and podcast services. With this, you’ll eventually be able to control the playback of your favorite app with your voice only – uttering commands like “Beat Beatles on Spotify” or “Play the latest episode of MacMagazine on Air in Pocket Casts.”

This, of course, does not just depend on Apple: the developers behind the apps in question will have to upgrade the apps to embrace support. Speaking specifically of Spotify, considering that Apple’s relations with the company are a little below the ideal in recent months, one might think that the Swedes might turn a blind eye to the novelty – but nothing like a little pressure in the service forums to vocalize the interest in integrating Siri.

Streaming on watchOS

Still talking about music apps, but changing the platform, a change in watchOS 6 could allow Apple Watch users to stream audio from third-party services directly to the clock – further reducing Watch’s dependence on the iPhone.

It is explained: until watchOS 5, apps like Spotify for Apple Watch exist as an extension of the iPhone application – the audio transmission is carried by the smartphone and sent to the watch. If you are using the Watch separately (for example, by cellular connection), you can not listen to songs that are not downloaded from it, because the system does not allow the audio to be transmitted directly to the watch.

With watchOS 6, this changes: new APIs will allow audio to be streamed to Apple Watch without intermediation of the iPhone, further deepening the independence of the clock and allowing music, podcasts and audiobook apps to add the ability to listen to any content at any time time.

Like Siri, of course, developers need to embrace the novelty – but, as it is a long-awaited improvement, they are likely to run with open arms to it as quickly as possible.