In addition, Spotify is best known for its personalization capabilities that help introduce users to new music based on their likes and listening history, which continues to be a major draw. Spotify’s stock dropped almost 5% on Tuesday after Amazon’s announcement, however.īy now making Spotify’s free tier more accessible, it’s likely that many people will choose Spotify’s free streaming over Amazon’s free streaming, given the larger catalog of over 50 million songs. That makes it better for those who only casually listen to music stations and curated playlists. While the service is a rival of sorts to other free services, like Spotify and Pandora, it has a more limited catalog of just 2 million tracks. Before, the free, ad-supported music service was only available on Echo devices. On Tuesday, Amazon announced its own music service would become free across devices, including the web, Fire TV, iOS and Android. The expanded support for smart speakers comes only a day after Amazon directly challenged Spotify with a major move of its own. This will also require the Bose and Sonos devices are updated to the latest firmware, the company says. To use Spotify Connect, you’ll tap the “Devices” icon on the screen to select which speaker you want to use. This works with Bose smart speakers and soundbars, as well as all Sonos smart speakers, including the new indoor/outdoor speaker Sonos Move and the Symfonisk Ikea WiFi Speaker, integrated with the Sonos Home Sound System. Meanwhile, on Sonos and Bose speakers, users can set up Spotify Connect from the Spotify app. The service also can be set as the default, so you can use commands like “Play my Discover Weekly,” “Like this song” or “Pause,” and more, without having to say “on Spotify.” In the case of Alexa devices, like Amazon Echo speakers or the Fire TV, users will be able to ask Alexa to play Spotify’s playlist, like “Today’s Top Hits,” or their personalized playlist, “Discover Weekly,” among others. Support for Sonos and Bose is more broadly available to users around the world. The Alexa support will be available for users in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Today, that changes as Spotify says its free tier will now stream across Alexa-powered devices, as well as other smart speakers from Sonos and Bose. Amazon reported earlier this year that it has sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices so far, and a recent study from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found Echo devices account for 70 percent of all smart speakers in the US.Spotify has worked with Amazon Echo since 2016, but only for premium subscribers. While Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music work with the voice assistant, Amazon's own streaming service is a more natural fit - especially if there's no additional cost. The decision to launch an ad-supported offering for Alexa devices only appears to be Amazon's attempt to leverage the popularity of its smart speakers. Amazon Music Unlimited, the company's paid premium tier, includes access to more than 50 million songs. The free tier of Amazon music will have a limited library of music, similar to the two million songs that Amazon Prime subscribers get access to for free. The voice assistant will also be able to queue up popular global playlists on Amazon Music, including selections like Country Heat and Fuego Latino. Listeners will be able to ask Alexa to play music by creating stations based in a song, artist, era or genre. Of course, this news also comes on the same day that Amazon's frenemies over at Google launched ad-supported free YouTube Music streaming on Google Home smart devices. Today, the commerce giant announced that Alexa device owners in the US will be able to listen to top playlists and stations on Amazon Music at no additional charge, even if they are not Amazon Prime subscribers. Turns out there was something to those rumblings. Rumors started circulating last week that Amazon was exploring a free, ad-supported tier of its streaming music service.
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