Some thought the day would never come, but Amazon and Apple have seemingly decided to work together even more closely and bring Apple Music to Echo speakers.
From Monday December 17, 2018 onwards Amazon will once again step out of its platform-agnostic comfort zone and integrate with Apple Music (though not iTunes).
Apple Music, the second most-used streaming service in the US, will join the likes of Spotify, Pandora and US-based iHeartRadio platform in supporting being controlled via Alexa voice commands – allowing users to request songs, albums, artists, radio stations and playlists from Apple Music.
Amazon’s smart speaker line is only the second to work directly with Apple Music – and given the other is Apple's own HomePod speaker, this is quite a big move from the retailer. In the blog sharing details about the feature, Amazon seemingly suggest that Amazon Music will only be coming to its Echo line of speakers and not other Alexa-powered offerings (i.e. the Sonos One).
We don’t yet know what time-frame is in place for the rollout, so Apple Music may not immediately be available to enjoy on December 17. When it is available, the service just needs to be enabled in the Amazon Alexa app as with other skills.