How To Change Your Default Music Player on an iPhone

For many years now, many people have been of the view that once you use an Apple product (iPhone to be precise), you are being restricted to some point. Although this is not entirely true, there is some truth in it. For example, if you are an iPhone user, you are only restricted to apps on the Apple App Store and nowhere else.

Among these, one of the things that iPhone users were limited to do was the inability to change the default music player from the default Apple Music app/player. This had been bothering many iPhone users who preferred other music players like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, etc. until iOS 14.5 was introduced earlier this year.

If you are an iPhone user, then there are several things you enjoyed from the introduction of iOS 14 in 2020. Personally, some of the new features I enjoyed include the option to set a default browser and email app on your iPhone, all of which were not available in the iOS 13 or the earlier iOS versions.

This guide, therefore, is going to show you how to change your default music app on your iPhone and everything else related to how you can make the most out of this feature introduced by Apple in iOS 14.

How To Change Your Default Music Player on an iPhone

Currently, there is only one way you can change the default music player on your iPhone, i.e. using the Siri command on all iPhones running iOS 14.5 or later.

How To Change Your Default Music Player on an iPhone Using Siri

1. Update your iPhone to iOS 14.5 or later
2. If you are using the newer versions of the iPhone you can ask to play an artist, song, or album. You can do so by saying “Hey Siri, play Madina to the Universe by M.anifest”
3. If you don’t have the latest versions of the iPhone, you can press and hold the power button (iPhone X and above) or the home button (iPhone 8 Plus and below)
4. A list of all the music apps you have installed on your iPhone will pop up and Siri will ask “Which app would you like to use”?
5. From the list of music players shown, choose your preferred music player
6. When asked, confirm that Siri can access data from your music player
7. Afterward, Siri will play the music in the app of your choice. For example, if you choose YouTube Music, the music will play in YouTube Music.

Changing Your Default Music Player on an iPhone Manually?

As of the time of writing this article, there has not been any official document on how to change the default music player on an iPhone manually. But many iPhone and technology analysts have concluded that this feature will be introduced in the iPhone sooner or later.

As newer versions are introduced to the iPhone’s iOS, it is likely that Apple will add this feature in some of the newer iOS versions.

Conclusion

Up until the introduction of iOS 14.5, iPhone users had to tell Siri which app to play music from the onset. For example, “Hey Siri, play Madina to the Universe by M.anifest in YouTube Music. But after iOS 14.5, this is no longer going to be an issue for iPhone users since they can go ahead and use Siri’s intelligence to change the default music player.

Although you can now change the default music player on your iPhone, you can still use the old method of asking Siri to play music for you if you wish to use a different music player other than the default player. For example, you can say “Hey Siri, play Petite by NSG in Spotify” and Siri will play Petite by NSG in Spotify.

In conclusion, this intervention by Apple to allow iPhone users to change the default music app is a good thing since it now lifts the restriction that has been placed on iPhone users. Gradually, Apple is trying to allow its users to modify their devices.