We’ve got some good news for those who use Spotify on Apple devices: The latest version of the app — released on Monday, October 7 — adds built-in support for Siri, which means you can now keep your phone in your pocket (or wherever it lives) and use your voice to ask for your music. The company has also launched an app for Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K.
Previously available as a beta feature, there are some caveats and a few restrictions on how you can work with Siri. First, Siri support for third-party music services is an iOS 13-only feature. If you own an iPhone 6 or older phone, or any of the older iPads that aren’t getting the latest version of Apple’s mobile software, this won’t work. Second, it appears to only work on devices that have the Spotify app. You can’t use it to get Siri to play Spotify on your Apple Watch, according to The Verge, because at the moment there’s no Apple Watch Spotify app.
For the moment, Siri can’t fulfill all of your Spotify wishes. Podcasts, for instance, can’t be requested. Nonetheless, Siri seems to be content to honor other Spotify requests, even via Apple’s AirPods, as long as they’re restricted to albums, playlists, or songs — and as long as you remember to tell Siri you want them to play “on Spotify.”
Unfortunately, command over Spotify has yet to reach all Siri-enabled devices. While it works on mobile devices and while using CarPlay, Apple’s HomePod still doesn’t respond to Spotify Siri requests, according to 9to5Mac.
We’ve been anticipating these new features for a while now, ever since Apple announced that iOS 13 would be opening up Siri to more and more apps, including third-party music services. It’s an important feature for Apple to launch now, especially as Amazon starts to seriously encroach on three of Apple’s chosen turfs: True wireless earbuds with a voice assistant (Echo Buds), high-fidelity wireless smart speakers (Echo Studio), and of course the big one, music services (Amazon Music HD).
Amazon has always been open to working with third-party services — in fact, it’s the biggest reason why Alexa has proven so popular — but Amazon also lets you set your preferred music service as the default for Alexa interactions. So far this is something Apple has refused to do on any Siri-powered device, including the HomePod.
Updated on October 7, 2019: Updated with general release info and details on a new Apple TV app.
