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IOS Music

iOS 14.5 Won't Actually Let You Change a Default Music Service (engadget.com) 22

It turns out that Apple's iOS 14.5 update won't actually let you change your default music service that you use with Siri. Engadget reports: Beta users had originally noticed that it appeared as if early versions of the update might allow you to change the default service that launches when you ask Siri to play a song. This meant that rather than specifying a third-party music app with each request, Siri would remember your preference and launch with the service you had originally specified.

While all that still seems to be the case, TechCrunch reports that Apple has apparently "clarified" that it "doesn't consider this feature the equivalent to 'setting a default.'" That's because the feature relies on "Siri intelligence," which can track your music-listening habits over time and predict which app you're more likely to want at that moment. For users, that may certainly feel as if you've changed your default music player, but there's still no way to do that on iOS.

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iOS 14.5 Won't Actually Let You Change a Default Music Service

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  • Things equivalent to this, I mean. Enforcing monopolism on devices and operating systems it sold.

    I think back then it was a sum so big, they had to pay 1.5 million for each DAY they delayed complying and paying up. If I do not confuse the many, many lawsuits for monopolism they lost.

    So let's see what Apple gets this time.
    Probably depends on somebody actually suing, and remembering the MS trial decisions.

    • > So let's see what Apple gets this time. Probably depends on somebody actually suing, and remembering the MS trial decisions.

      Regardless of the merits of the Microsoft case, it lost because it didn't bribe politicians. They never made that mistake again and neither does Apple.

      Cook and Harris are on the same team. Parler sealed the deal.

  • I see.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @07:34PM (#61124904) Homepage

    That Microsoft Embrace, Extend, Extinguish playbook keeps getting used over and over again.

    Embrace the music industry. Let it flourish on your platform. Get them addicted to how much money they make there. Nevermind that the iPod started out as an inferior product, the tight coupling to your music store provided a "superior" experience. Sell everyone on the "experience" of having your music forever trapped by encryption. Sue the hell out of anyone who might figure out how to let people enjoy the music they purchased on a different product.

    Extend that platform. Add to it. Podcasts, books, television and movies. Provide tools for people to migrate their music, books, and shows to your platform for "organizational" reasons. Let them get trapped as above. Ensure the music industry sees their cut increase, slowly, over time. Protect your turf by making it incredibly hard to profit from doing the same thing you're doing on the same hardware. Complain to everyone who will listen that all you want is an even playing ground while tilting everything you can in your favor.

    Extinguish. Make your platform the only one which can make money for the industry. Show them that they cannot live without it. Ramp up the effort on the second tier products of books, television, and movies to be the same by producing them directly. Prevent competition by any means possible. Impose stricter and stricter oversight of the platform without increasing the amount of knowledge of how to operate successfully on said platform.

    When confronted with your acitons, deny all terms and definitions.

    Apple. Playing Calvinball with your life since you bought your first iPod.

    • The tighter the grip the more people slip through the fingers.

      As much as people complain about the monopolies that develop in "big tech" I have to wonder just what we are supposed to do about it. A large part of the appeal with Apple products is the familiarity of the interface over time and across devices. There's going to be some trivial and cosmetic customization on Apple devices but take this too far and it can break this familiarity and therefore the ease of use.

      Any organization will want to defend i

      • Not sure what you're taking about here. You say the rationale for no default changing is because the apps might not be up to snuff. .. but then who's fault would that be? Their own, because they can arbitrarily deny apps. That's such a dumb rationale if you put like 2 seconds of thought into it
        • I did put some thought into this. I explained it in my post, which you apparently did not read through before replying.

          If Apple's Siri is going to integrate seamlessly then Apple and it's competitor is going to have to agree on how the interface between the two works. It's in Apple's interest to give users options so they offer an interface for competitors to use. Apple isn't going to take the time to make this a seamless interface because that could be giving it's competitors access to trade secrets. E

  • apple is just asking for the app store to be opened open by law.

  • by Kyogreex ( 2700775 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @07:53PM (#61124962)

    That's because the feature relies on "Siri intelligence," which can track your music-listening habits over time and predict which app you're more likely to want at that moment.

    The ability to set a default music service is both easy to implement and what most users are going to want. That they will instead implement a much more complex system that is less useful to users without also offering the simple solution makes it obvious that they have ulterior motives.

    I have to wonder if part of the reason they're doing this is to head off complaints about monopolistic behavior. If so, I hope the courts look on this even more unfavorably than doing nothing and being honest about it.

    • You can set a default browser and default email app since iOS 14 but that’s because Apple doesn’t make money on those. If you change those defaults they lose nothing, Apple makes money with Apple Music so tying it to operating system as the default makes sense if you see them (as most people would) as a company most interested in money above all else.

      Same goes for their Microsoft-esque move of putting advertising in the OS, the ads for free trials of Apple Music and Arcade that pop up in the Set

      • > You can set a default browser

        but it is using the WebKit engine under the hood. You are still driving a Jetta even if you get Xhibit to make it look like a Ferrari.

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @08:08PM (#61125014)

    I'm done with companies trying to decide what they think I want. It does nothing except get in my way and as a rule, they're wrong anyway. This includes Firefox on which I've turned off getting suggestions and yet it insists on acting as if it's trying to decide what I want by having a dropdown appear and showing the exact thing I'm typing.

    The same for cars. I've driven my parents new Toyota and found the "warning" system that I'm too close to the center line is more dangerous than helpful. When going into a long loping turn or corner, my inside wheel will be close to the line and having the car decide to jerk the wheel the other way is disconcerting at best and nearly terrifying due to temporary loss of control.

    Manufacturers, of all ilks, need to stop this madness of trying to decide what people want. We didn't want Clippy 20 years ago, we don't need its offspring on steroids now. Stop annoying and harassing people. Do only what people ask you to do and noting else.

    There's a reason Notepad and Notepad++ are so successful. They don't get in your way of trying to do something.

    • That is literally what companies exist to do - to try to figure out what their customers want and provide it.

      • Unless you are a company that is so big and so popular that the sheeple are told what they do and do not want. The few that protest are eclipsed by the many who wait to be told what else they want, wallet-in-hand.
    • When going into a long loping turn or corner, my inside wheel will be close to the line and having the car decide to jerk the wheel the other way is disconcerting at best and nearly terrifying due to temporary loss of control.

      Then quit being one of those drivers that try to hug the inner line and end up going over the center line during a corner. You should be doing the opposite - keeping your outer wheel a set distance from the outer line. This gives any drivers coming the opposite direction more room without them driving on the inner shoulder to avoid people crossing the center line.

      I see a similar problem when people turn through an intersection with two lanes turning together. The drivers in the outer lane are constantl

      • I wasn't going to respond to this, but I am

        If you're in a long loping turn you want your inside tires near the line because your car will naturally want to drift outward. You know, that whole centripetal force and all. By keeping near the line and letting the car slowly drift out, you follow the best and most stable path. If you drive further away from the line, you're decreasing stability and increasing tire wear since the car is already further out from the center point and you have to hold it in line

        • If you're in a long loping turn you want your inside tires near the line because...

          If the oncoming driver is that close to the line on the same curve, they're doing it wrong. They should be closer to the inside line, near the shoulder....

          If you're not finding the shortest path through a corner, you're doing it wrong...

          Stop trying to decide what I want.

  • Siri keeps saying there's a problem with Apple Music. Well, there's no problem, I'm not a subscriber. My music is in iTunes, Siri - find it.

  • THEY decide what the user can and cannot do, not the user. Perfectly good hardware, specs wise, made obsolete by sub-par OS design--to buy new devices. You cannot plug these iOS phones into a computer and move files over, because security. So, basically, the user cannot be trusted. Why give them the device at all? You know, security. Time for devices for the user, not to worship corporate phallus and to have freedom to make mistakes to learn. The freedom to be enslaved is no freedom at all.

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

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