Google Maps, Waze, and Pandora now work natively with Siri on iOS 13

Apple’s launch of iOS 13 at the moment means third-party builders can now launch apps that may entry Siri with none configuration in your finish. Earlier than iOS 13, attempting to make use of a non-Apple app with Siri required establishing a Siri Shortcut. Generally, even that wouldn’t work.

However now, iOS 13 customers can lastly faucet into native Siri options, unlocking a lot of helpful prospects. One state of affairs in want of extra hands-free choices is if you’re driving and have to maintain your eyes on the street. A couple of app makers have already launched updates at the moment that would make utilizing Siri whereas driving a significantly better, and safer, expertise.

If, for instance, you wish to ask Siri to present you instructions from an app aside from Apple Maps, now you can ask Siri to present you instructions from each Google Maps and Waze. This sounds nice, however in my testing, it’s not fairly as seamless as you may want.

Once I used common location requests — I attempted “the Apple Retailer” and “Seattle” — Siri opened up Google Maps with instructions prepared. (I nonetheless needed to faucet the beginning button within the app, so it’s not a totally hands-free expertise.) However after I tried to ask Siri to present me instructions to a couple totally different numbered addresses in Google Maps, every time, my iPhone simply opened Apple Maps as an alternative. It seems it could want some tinkering, both from Apple or the app makers, to get third-party Siri help working as designed.

What does work nice, although, was asking Siri to play music from Pandora. I requested Siri to play a pair totally different artists on Pandora, and every time it labored flawlessly. And shortly, you would possibly be capable to ask Siri to play you songs on Spotify, as some customers on Reddit operating iOS 13 and a Spotify beta have additionally reported having the ability to take action, however The Verge hasn’t been in a position to take a look at it fairly but. I’m additionally hoping podcast and audiobook apps will quickly be up to date to work with Siri, too.

One massive caveat: for all of those apps, you’ll have to ask Siri to open that app as a part of your command — for instance, “play Frank Ocean on Pandora” or “get me instructions to Seattle in Waze.” There’s nonetheless no means in iOS to set non-Apple default apps for Siri, like you possibly can with Alexa or Google Assistant. However, even on this first day of testing native Siri integrations, they’ve been actually useful and make Siri a bit higher than it was earlier than.