With the Amazon Echo getting ready to star in a Super Bowl commercial this weekend, it’s not shocking to see it brushing up its résumé and making sure that it is ready to put its best foot forward on a national stage.
Earlier in the week, the Echo picked up the ability to order you a pizza from Domino’s, and now once the pizza arrives and a halftime show that you aren’t thrilled about starts, you will be able to crank your favorite Spotify music on the Echo to keep the party rolling.
Unfortunately, this functionality is only available to Spotify Premium subscribers, so you will need to pony up $9.99 a month in order to take advantage of this on your Echo. If you haven’t tried Spotify Premium previously, you can give it a spin for 30 days before getting hit with a bill.
I’m going to go ahead and recommend that you not hold your breath for Play Music support to arrive on the Echo, which is particularly disappointing to me now that podcasts are available there, as the limited podcast support on the Echo is one of my few complaints with the device.
With all the new functionality and attention that Amazon is going to be drawing to the Echo this month, it would seem like a logical time to take the wraps off that rumored portable version.
Is the Echo getting any more tempting for you? Would a portable version at around $100 push you over the top?
Show Press Release
“Alexa, Play Spotify”: Spotify Now Available on Amazon Echo |
Spotify Premium subscribers can listen to any song in the Spotify catalog on EchoSEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb. 4, 2016– (NASDAQ: AMZN)— Amazon today announced that Spotify Premium subscribers in the U.S. can now listen to their music on Amazon Echo—just ask Alexa to play any playlist, artist, genre and more from Spotify’s catalog. And because Echo also supports Spotify Connect, customers can effortlessly transfer and control their listening experience from the Spotify app to Echo—just select Echo from the list of available devices within the Spotify app. If you don’t have Spotify Premium, new users can try Spotify Premium free for 30 days by visiting: http://ift.tt/1JaYz4O.“We’re extremely pleased that Spotify Premium subscribers can now listen to their favorite music on Amazon Echo,” said Ian Geller, Global Head of Hardware at Spotify. “Creating innovative experiences is core to our mission. We know our users will love controlling music with their voice at home.”
“Now playing your favorite music from Spotify is as easy as asking Alexa,” said Toni Reid, Director, Amazon Alexa. “Music is one of the most popular features on Amazon Echo, and Spotify has been one of the most requested services, so we’re excited to bring it to our customers today.”
Additionally, Echo customers can play music from Amazon Music, Prime Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, and TuneIn. Simply ask Alexa for an artist, song, genre, playlist, or station, and once music is playing you can pause and skip tracks using voice commands. Echo is also Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream other music services from your phone or tablet.
Amazon Echo is hands-free and always ready, and with seven microphones and beam-forming technology, it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Alexa—the brain behind Echo—is built in the cloud, so it’s always getting smarter. Echo also offers hands-free voice control for information from Wikipedia and the web, weather, timers and alarms, news, shopping/to-do lists, sports updates and scores, smart home features, Audible books, calendar entries, IFTTT, and much more—with new skills being added every week.
Amazon Echo is currently available for $179.99 at Amazon.comand other retail locations across the U.S. For more information, visitwww.amazon.com/echo.
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Source :
Androidandme