It’s a change that means end users can now
finally better control their favorite apps using
the power of their voice alone, and it’s telling
that not only Spotify, but also the likes of
Pandora, Google Maps and Waze have already
introduced Siri integration to their apps since
it became available. Some of these companies’
apps are rivals to equivalents offered by Apple
on iOS, so it’s clear that many of them have been
eager to take advantage of such Siri support at
the earliest opportunity.
On the music front, for example, Spotify has
long arguably been at a disadvantage when
compared to Apple Music – and even with the
introduction of the new Siri support, if you
simply ask the voice assistant to “play [album
name]” or “play [artist name]”, it will still default
to Apple Music. In fact, as Mayo discovered, even
if you uninstall Apple Music on your device in
an attempt to make Spotify Siri’s go-to app for
such commands, the voice assistant will still
ignore Spotify by default, complaining that “I
can’t do that because I can’t find ‘Music’ on
your phone.” So, you’ll need to remember to
mention Spotify in your request to prevent Siri
determinedly defaulting to Apple Music.
There’s another interesting thing that the
updated Spotify app supports, though – iOS
13’s new Low Data Mode. This mode doesn’t
do anything on its own, instead effectively
telling apps to behave in a manner that uses
less data, as will doubtless be handy for users
who often don’t have much bandwidth to play
with. Of course, it’s a feature that requires those
third-party apps receiving the instruction to
cooperate in the first place, so it’s great that
when the updated Spotify app detects the