Apple Music is Coming to Alexa Smart Devices

Amazon.com announced this morning that Apple Music is coming to the Echo and other Alexa-powered smart devices, starting December 17.

“Music is one of the most popular features on Alexa,” Amazon senior vice president Dave Limp notes in a prepared statement. “Since we launched Alexa four years ago, customers are listening to more music in their homes than ever before.”

Amazon.com paved the way for this change via improvements to both its Alexa technologies and its relationship with Apple.

On the technology front, Amazon opened up Alexa to more third-party music services when it released its Music Skill API last month. This skill enables services to use a wide range of Alexa capabilities across different smart device types, including multi-room audio, visual search on Echo Show and Spot, using music for alarms, and more.

More recently, Amazon took a major step in its often-contentious relationships with competitors when it reached a deal with Apple to sell the consumer electronics giant’s products via its online store. That said, Amazon doesn’t sell Apple’s HomePod smart speaker, which competes directly with Echo.

This is a mutually beneficial agreement, for sure: Amazon’s own music subscription service isn’t particularly successful since Echo owners get a subset of the service for free. And Apple’s HomePod has sold poorly as well, leading to questions about its future. Getting Apple Music on one of the most successful smart speaker platforms is a good hedge against that possibility.

 

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Conversation 29 comments

  • maethorechannen

    Premium Member
    30 November, 2018 - 9:09 am

    <p>I wonder if we'll see a Siri skill at some point. </p>

    • red.radar

      Premium Member
      30 November, 2018 - 9:35 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#375338">In reply to maethorechannen:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>This made me smile</p>

  • BigM72

    30 November, 2018 - 9:13 am

    <p>This is great news. I'm an Apple Music subscriber. I was going to buy a homepod because of this but now I can buy a much cheaper and more useful Echo.</p>

    • thalter

      Premium Member
      30 November, 2018 - 9:18 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#375340">In reply to BigM72:</a></em></blockquote><p>Came here to say exactly this, but you beat me to it! </p><p><br></p><p>I'm glad that Apple has maintained a relative truce with both Amazon and Google, as consumers benefit when everyone cooperates. The pointless war between Amazon and Google only harms users of those respective platforms </p>

  • Corbey

    Premium Member
    30 November, 2018 - 9:30 am

    <p>So i wonder if I’ll be able to ask Alexa to play Apple Music on a Sonos device? You would think so, since Sonos already supports Apple Music.</p>

    • igor engelen

      30 November, 2018 - 1:27 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#375347"><em>In reply to Corbey:</em></a><em>isn't that possible already? The Sonos One for instance is an Alexa speaker, and as far as I know Apple Music was always supported.</em></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><em>As a side note ; my pair of Sonos One speakers is by far the best investment I made recently. </em></blockquote><p><br></p>

      • panjjj

        Premium Member
        30 November, 2018 - 2:44 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#375564"><em>In reply to Igor Engelen:</em></a><em> Also, to your side note–I have found the combo of the new Echo+ as stereo pairs with the Echo sub a great option to consider when looking at Homepod, Google Homemax or a more expensive Sonos configuration. </em></blockquote><p><br></p>

        • igor engelen

          01 December, 2018 - 8:09 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#375610">In reply to panjjj:</a></em></blockquote><p>Nice, plenty of good alternatives out there.</p>

  • jprestig

    30 November, 2018 - 9:51 am

    <p>This is great news. I just dove into the Echo world and thought I'd have to convince the family to move to Amazon Music from Apple Music. It would have been no easy feat since everyone loves Apple Music.</p><p><br></p><p>Also, it would be great if Apple Music comes to Fire tablets now too. But I'll keep dreaming about that one.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      30 November, 2018 - 12:09 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#375354">In reply to jprestig:</a></em></blockquote><p>You could move to a music service that isn't made by a hardware vendor if you really want service support on multiple hardware vendors' devices.</p>

      • jprestig

        30 November, 2018 - 2:05 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375455">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>The issue isn't me, it's my family. Everyone has iOS devices and loves Apple Music. If it was only up to me, we'd be on Spotify.</p>

      • provision l-3

        01 December, 2018 - 8:44 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375455">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yeah, it's a little known fact that Apple also makes all Windows and Android systems. That is why they all have Apple music. </p>

    • wesb

      30 November, 2018 - 1:51 pm

      <blockquote><em>Spotify works on Amazon Echo. </em><a href="#375354"><em>In reply to jprestig:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • glenn8878

    30 November, 2018 - 11:45 am

    <p>I wish all streaming music is free. The playlists of Amazon Prime and free Pandora are limiting. I refuse to subscribe to yet another subscription service that I barely use. </p>

    • MikeGalos

      30 November, 2018 - 12:07 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#375420">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>Musicians get almost nothing even with people paying subscription fees. Can you honestly think they'll give away their work for free?</p>

      • Andi

        30 November, 2018 - 1:48 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375454">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Maybe he meant free in the sense of ad supported "free". Don't jump the man.</p>

      • glenn8878

        30 November, 2018 - 2:05 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375454">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>So they get barely nothing if I'm paying for subscription fees. Not exactly making your case. </p>

      • NT6.1

        30 November, 2018 - 5:14 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375454">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I still think download is better than streaming.</p>

      • Jeffsters

        01 December, 2018 - 1:22 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375454">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Artists make their big money touring and selling/licensing merchandise. It’s ALWAYS been this way. Like book authors you get a contractual advance and from then on every royalty statement has (). Musicians tour, book authors speak or consult. </p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      30 November, 2018 - 12:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#375420">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>Do you get paid for the work you do? Granted the artists themselves don't make a whole lot from streaming music, but there are a whole lot of people other than the artist whose work helps the artists.</p>

      • MikeGalos

        30 November, 2018 - 12:48 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#375485">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes. And those other people won't get paid, either. Zero dollars doesn't go very far when you split it 10 ways or 100 ways.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • igor engelen

      01 December, 2018 - 8:12 am

      <blockquote><a href="#375420"><em></em>In reply to glenn8878</a> there's still free Spotify that you can try but nothing can beat paid music services.</blockquote><p><br></p>

  • provision l-3

    30 November, 2018 - 12:03 pm

    <p>It's funny, I saw this news elsewhere and literally thought "I wonder how Paul is going to spin this as bad news about another Apple product." and I was not let down. Apparently this is about about Home Pod sales. Since Apple Music has always been a multi platformed service so I'm guessing that the availability of the service on Android and Windows are actually about iPhone and Mac sales cratering? I mean it certainly can't be that Apple has said that services is its next big area for growth, Apple Music is a service and expanding it's availability helps grow the service and works toward their stated strategy. That would just crazy. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • mattbg

    Premium Member
    30 November, 2018 - 12:33 pm

    <p>I still feel like it'd be a miracle if we saw Chromecast support in Apple Music on iOS devices.</p><p><br></p><p>I'm quite attached to the Apple ecosystem but I can't easily give up the relative flexibility of Spotify which on iOS integrates with AirPlay, Chromecast, and even my aging Squeezebox infrastructure (via community plugin).</p>

  • Patrick3D

    30 November, 2018 - 1:01 pm

    <p>Makes me wonder if it will be able to stream Beats 1 for free, it's already free for anyone via iTunes. Although 99% of the music played on Beats 1 is complete garbage, the "celebrity" hosts they have on play their own personalized music lists that tend to include far more diverse and interesting music. Having live music hosts is the one thing that other music services are missing that Apple has done.</p>

  • DaveHelps

    Premium Member
    30 November, 2018 - 1:50 pm

    <p>Will that include Xbox One?</p>

  • johnross1563

    22 January, 2019 - 1:14 pm

    <p>You Can easily use <a href="https://technguides.com/download-saavn-pro-mod-apk-premium-saavn-apk.html/&quot; target="_blank">saavn Pro</a> in order to play music via alexa in apple devices</p>

  • last bench guy

    09 March, 2019 - 2:31 am

    <p>I think Alexa and Apple its gone a be other level </p>

  • shonty

    21 March, 2019 - 4:33 am

    <p>I agree but this is a good <a href="http://reviewsdaddy.in/best-bluetooth-speaker-price-india/&quot; target="_blank">speaker</a> though.</p>

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