Roger Fingas
People with one of Amazon's Fire TV streamers can now listen to Apple Music, much as they can on Echo speakers.
Enabling support simply involves turning on the Apple Music skill in the Alexa app. In fact if that skill is already activated on an Echo, it should work on a Fire TV without extra effort.
Voice commands work identically as well, such as "Play songs by 'Current 93' on Apple Music." The catch of course is that users must specifically say "on Apple Music" unless they've changed that service to their default. Either way it should be possible to push tracks to other speakers or multi-room groups.
Apple Music arrived on Echo speakers Dec. 17, significantly expanding its reach, given that the HomePod has a 4.1 percent global share in smartspeakers versus Amazon's 35.5. Even China's Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi remain ahead.
Amazon's Apple Music support is still limited to first-party devices in the U.S. On Wednesday, however, the company did say that a U.K. rollout will happen in the next few weeks.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
William Gallagher
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4 Comments
Canada, please, for Apple Music on an Amazon Echo. I can’t afford a HomePod. Yes, I know they don’t remotely compare in sound quality but I would like to listen to my Apple Music in the background on my Echo that I purchased for half price as I do my chores around the house.
Canada, please.
That’s really awesome!!!
I'm very pleased to see Apple Music spreading to other speakers. I feel bad that most of those speakers people will be listening to Apple Music on sound like complete crap, but I'm also aware that not everyone listens to music as "actively" as I tend to, or at least not all the time. I do worry about what personal data Alexa devices collect (generally, and about your Apple Music picks specifically) so i'm not going to ever purchase or knowingly speak to one, but for people who are okay with the eavesdropping Amazon does, I'm very glad you can enjoy your preferred music service on your devices/
I don't like Amazon, Twitter, Facebook or Google, but it does seem we're getting to a place I call 'Platform Agnostic!'
I will still have only Apple hardware and Apple software in my home and on my devices! :)
Best.