It’s finally happened! Apple and Amazon have come to an agreement over music streaming services, and as such, you will soon be able to play Apple Music on Echo devices. From December 17, this feature will be enabled – the perfect festive gift for patrons of both companies.
Until now, users with Echo devices have been able to choose between a variety of popular streaming services, except Apple Music. This upcoming change will mean voice commands to Alexa will be able to play and control your entire library from Apple, so you’ll finally be able to ask something like “Alexa, play my new music mix on Apple Music” and have it respond accordingly.
Meanwhile, Apple devices like the HomePod and Apple TV can of course stream from Apple Music, but very little else. It’s a frustrating situation for Spotify fans to be sure.
For those stuck straddling two music services such as myself, this is a welcome opportunity to settle on just one and have it work on multiple devices. Apple may lose a few HomePod sales, but it will likely gain a bunch of Apple Music subscribers now that it works on most of the popular home devices (sorry Google Home).
Services are becoming increasingly important to Apple as it tries to add more income streams to support its hardware sales, and this just goes to show that in some cases that can benefit users. We’ll just have to keep dreaming for Spotify on Apple TV.
Related reading: Amazon finally strikes deal to sell Apple products