Amazon is continuing its international rollout of the Apple Music on Alexa skill, with it now available in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Amazon Echo
After installation of the skill, Apple Music subscribers will be able to make requests to Alexa to play from Apple Music's catalog of 50 million songs through the Echo devices. Aside from individual artists and songs, users will be able to request any playlist made by Apple Music's editors available on the service, listen to expert-curated radio stations from different genres, and can also stream Apple's digital radio station Beats 1.
Enabling Apple Music on your devices is performed from within the Amazon Alexa app on an iPhone.
Adding Apple Music to Amazon Alexa
- Launch the Amazon Alexa app on your iPhone, and navigate to the Skills & Games page.
- Search for Apple Music.
- Tap Enable to add the skill.
- Sign into Apple Music.
For Apple, the skill significantly increases the number of devices that can stream Apple Music, as Amazon has a considerable existing install base of the Echo, Echo Dot, and other models.
Amazon will benefit from having even more music service options available to consumers on the Echo range, along with Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, and others.
For consumers, this presents the opportunity to add numerous Apple Music-compatible speakers to their home, and in the case of the Echo Dot, at a far lower cost than buying a HomePod. The feature will eventually work with other speakers and devices that use Alexa from third-party vendors, including Sonos and Bose.
The new skill rolled out in the US shortly after the two companies made a deal to make new Apple products available on Amazon from Apple directly and authorized resellers from January 4.