MARCH 2020 MACWORLD 97
- THOROUGHLY INTEGRATE
SHAZAM
Apple bought Shazam in 2018 (go.
macworld.com/bysh) but hasn’t done a
whole lot with it besides remove ads.
Technically, you’re using Shazam
technology when you ask Siri to identify a
song, but Apple could go a lot further.
First, build Shazam right into Apple
Music. Make an easy-to-hit “identify this
song” button both in the iPhone/iPad and
Apple Watch interface. Keep a custom
default playlist for identified songs that
makes a note of the date, time, and location.
And steal a page from Google’s Pixel
phones and enable on-device, constant
song identification. It would be an opt-in
option, of course, but when enabled would
show a small bar with the currently playing
song on the lock screen and notification
shade. Tap it to hop directly to that song in
Apple Music.
- LET USERS CHANGE APP
DEFAULTS
It’s beyond time to allow users to choose
their default apps for certain actions. When
I tap on an address, I should be able to
hop right into Google Maps or Waze if I
want to, rather than Apple Maps. Links
should be able to open in the browser of
my choice, not just Safari (they all have to
use Safari’s page rendering, anyway!).
You can do this on a Mac (go.macworld.
com/oamc)—what is Apple afraid of? Apple
already has the advantage of its apps
being pre-installed and the default choice,
but allowing users to go into settings and
change the default apps for certain types
of actions would go a long way to
satisfying power users (and stemming cries
that Apple is an abusive monopoly).
In iOS 14, Apple could start small, with
music, podcasts, and maps, and grow
support for default apps from there. And of
course, these defaults would extend to
Siri, so if I change my default music app to
Spotify, asking Siri to simply play a given
song would open it in Spotify, without
having to designate that particular service
(go.macworld.com/ptsc). ■
When I tap on
an address, I’d
love to be able
to go straight to
Google Maps,
rather than
Apple Maps
(as here).
