App researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered information that shows the app will support voice activation. Users will be able to start voice commands by opening with “Hey Spotify”. Unfortunately, it seems the tool will only work when the app opens. In other words, you won’t be able to access Spotify from elsewhere on a device through your voice. It is worth noting Spotify’s music streaming rivals already have their own integrated voice commands. Pandora allows users to manage the app through voice, as does Apple Music by leveraging Siri. If Spotify’s integration is similar, we can expect voice commands to be expansive. Some of the core commands on Pandora include more commands beyond the ability to play/pause, and skip tracks that Alexa and Google offer. For example, users can play themed music, such as “playing songs for my workout” and utter open-ended requests, like “play something else”.
No More Cortana on Spotify
Spotify’s decision to develop its own voice assistant makes Microsoft’s decision to remove music playback functionality from Cortana a little easier to take. Or at least it would if Microsoft had not scaled back Cortana wholesale. Earlier this week, the company announced a feature rollback, removing many consumer-focused abilities from Cortana. “Some consumer skills including music, connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10. We’re also making some changes to where Cortana helps you. As part of our standard practice, we are ending support for Cortana in older versions of Windows that have reached their end-of-service dates. “We recommend that customers update their devices to the latest version of Windows 10 to continue using Cortana. We’ll also be turning off the Cortana services in the Microsoft Launcher on Android by the end of April.”
