Apple Music is coming to the Amazon Echo

Starting mid-December, Amazon Echo devices will be able to stream songs from Apple Music. A bit of a surprise, perhaps, given that Apple’s been a competitor in the space since launching the HomePod back in 2017.

Amazon’s had its own music service for some time as well, but the company appears to have given up on the dream of being a series competitor in the space — for now, at least. Instead, Echo smart speakers offer native support for a decent cross section of streaming services, including Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

The new skill lets users play specifics songs, genres, playlists and the Beats 1 station through the smart speakers. Adding Apple Music will help the popular smart home products tap into a rapidly growing service.

The company cracked 50 million subscribers earlier this year. That’s still well behind the 83 million paid subscribers Spotify announced back in July, but this addition should help give Amazon an added advantage against Google’s Home devices, particularly here in the States, where the bulk of Apple Music subscribers reside.

For Apple’s part, the offering brings Music to much more accessible hardware. The HomePod currently runs $349 — several times the price of the entry-level Echo Dot. The new skill arrives on Echos the week of December 17.



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2P7FjQk
via IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tesla’s Dojo, a timeline

Elon Musk doesn’t want Tesla to be just an automaker. He wants Tesla to be an AI company, one that’s figured out how to make cars drive themselves.  Crucial to that mission is Dojo, Tesla’s custom-built supercomputer designed to train its Full Self-Driving (FSD) neural networks. FSD isn’t actually fully self-driving; it can perform some […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/9uhRcnY via IFTTT
Read more

Autonomation

Image
“Jidoka” is a new one to me. TRI (Toyota Research Institute) CEO Gill Pratt described the concept as “Automation with a Human Touch.” The anglicized version of the notion is “Autonomation” — both are modified forms of “ automation,” in their respective languages. The word was originally applied to Toyota’s Production System, highlighting the need for human participation in the process. Quoting from Toyota here: Employing Jidoka principles throughout the production process is a vital element of the Toyota Production System, forcing imperfections to be immediately addressed by self-inspecting workers and thereby reducing the amount of work added to a defective product. Some automated machines can also function in the detection process, allowing human operatives to only be engaged when alerted to a problem. It’s a nice sentiment — a kind of harmony between robots and humans that ultimately plays to their respective strengths. There is, of course, a very real question of how fundamen...
Read more

Time for moderation?

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen made it clear that while he was keen on buying Convoy because of the "incredible tech stack" it built, he wasn't buying its strategy. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/oB8wO3Q via IFTTT
Read more