Amazon Echo Devices Gain Support for Apple Podcasts

[MacRumors]

Apple Podcasts are now available on Alexa-enabled devices as of today. Amazon announced the news earlier this morning, confirming that Alexa device owners in the United States can now ask the smart assistant to play Apple Podcasts.

Customers can link their Amazon accounts in the Alexa app to their Apple ID, and afterwards any progress they make on an Apple Podcast will be synced with their Amazon devices.

Pause the subscribed episode you're listening to in the Apple Podcasts app on your commute, and continue listening with your Alexa device at home by asking Alexa to resume the podcast.

It's easy to find and play your favorite podcasts with Alexa--all you have to do is ask for the episode you want to hear.

Apple Podcasts can also be set as the preferred podcast provider within the Alexa app. Users can visit Settings > Music and Podcasts > Link/Manage New Services to find this setting.

On Apple devices, Apple Podcasts can be listened to on iPhone, Mac, HomePod, and more. The service houses more than 750,000 shows and lets users download episodes to watch later on iPhone, with listening history synced across devices, now including Amazon products.

Article Link: Amazon Echo Devices Gain Support for Apple Podcasts

 

[CMG91]

Maybe the Resume playback feature will work better than it does with my HomePods.. It never resumes playback where I actually left off listening on my phone.. Sometimes it plays entirely different episodes or shows!

 

[dominiongamma]

It’s good to see Apple and Amazon getting along well lately. I see really no reason to get an HomePod anymore since the eco devices are cheaper and more open and not locked down. It benefits Apple users and Amazon users.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

It’s good to see Apple and Amazon getting along well lately. I see really no reason to get an HomePod anymore since the eco devices are cheaper and more open and not locked down. It benefits Apple users and Amazon users.

Agreed!

I would love to see the ability to use the Echo devices to (1) add voice control to the Apple TV, and (2) play audio from the Apple TV.

 

[dominiongamma]

Agreed!

I would love to see the ability to use the Echo devices to (1) add voice control to the Apple TV, and (2) play audio from the Apple TV.

I wish we could airplay our music to echo devices instead of voice command. Spotify you can control the music within the app, hoping Apple will continue to open up. But that’s a great idea for Apple TV. I could imagine like “Alexia play this latest episode of Red Moon” as an example where it launches the app and plays the episode.

 

[badatusernames]

I would love to use this if Apple Podcasts actually worked properly.

 

[Caliber26]

I wish we could airplay our music to echo devices instead of voice command. Spotify you can control the music within the app, hoping Apple will continue to open up. But that’s a great idea for Apple TV. I could imagine like “Alexia play this latest episode of Red Moon” as an example where it launches the app and plays the episode.

You can sort of do that via Bluetooth. Just say “Alexa, connect to my iPhone“ and it’ll work like any other Bluetooth speaker. You’ll be able to control the music from whatever app you’re using on your iPhone of iPad. I personally don’t see what advantage AirPlay has over Bluetooth 99% of the time.

 

[badatusernames]

You can sort of do that via Bluetooth. Just say “Alexa, connect to my iPhone“ and it’ll work like any other Bluetooth speaker. You’ll be able to control the music from whatever app you’re using on your iPhone of iPad. I personally don’t see what advantage AirPlay has over Bluetooth 99% of the time.

Bluetooth is also basically universal unlike AirPlay.

 

[Morac]

Has anyone tried to use this? I added the Apple Podcast skill, linked my Apple ID and asked Alexa to play x on Apple Podcasts and get the response “Apple Podcasts is not supported on this device” on every Alexa device I try.

”resume podcast” does work, but seems to pick some random podcast I’ve subscribed to and not necessarily one i haven’t already played.

Edit:

I figured out the issue. The Apple Podcasts skill doesn’t support speaker groups. If the device you ask is set to play music to a speaker group by default, you’ll get that “not supported” message. A work around is to specify which device to play back on. That’s not ideal, but it works.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

Has anyone tried to use this? I added the Apple Podcast skill, linked my Apple ID and asked Alexa to play x on Apple Podcasts and get the response “Apple Podcasts is not supported on this device” on every Alexa device I try.

”resume podcast” does work, but seems to pick some random podcast I’ve subscribed to and not necessarily one i haven’t already played.

Edit:

I figured out the issue. The Apple Podcasts skill doesn’t support speaker groups. If the device you ask is set to play music to a speaker group by default, you’ll get that “not supported” message. A work around is to specify which device to play back on. That’s not ideal, but it works.

Of course! Apple can’t possible see a scenario where it customers would like to listen in more than one room.

 

[Morac]

Of course! Apple can’t possible see a scenario where it customers would like to listen in more than one room.

What’s odd is that Apple Music does support multi room support. As such I’m not sure if this is an Apple or Amazon issue. The fact that podcasts from TuneIn can play on multi-speaker groups seem to indicate Apple, but Amazon’s wording that speaker groups are only used for music seems to indicate that Apple might not have expected podcasts to try and play in speaker groups. Either way the error response is badly worded and that comes from Amazon.

 

[Wolfpup]

Geez, I just saw this as it just appeared on Apple’s App Store page!

1) I’m VERY nervous about using my real Apple/Microsoft/Google accounts on hardware/OSes thr I don’t think are secure. Goes for using AppleTV+ on a firetv or Roku, and would go for this too.

2) I seriously doubt this would work for me. In my expert any of the over the air syncing with Apple podcasts is totally broken (and everything else is half broken). I use podcasts every day, but I do so by using a windows pc to manage all my downloads and podcasts, syncing them to my other devices...this wouldn’t allow for that I assume, and it wouldn’t actually reliably synceven playback info, so worthless for those two reasons.

still, super surprising and interesting.
[automerge]1595432643[/automerge]

It’s good to see Apple and Amazon getting along well lately. I see really no reason to get an HomePod anymore since the eco devices are cheaper and more open and not locked down. It benefits Apple users and Amazon users.

security. I wouldn’t trust Alexa. Don’t trust that they’ll be supported very long and you’re not stuck buying a no every year or two for updates, and even aside from that they don’t do security right, just allow anything to run on the speaker.

I’d have preferred a HomePod but since it was literally 10x less, I got a google home mini, which should at least be doing security solidly even if I don’t trust them for like location data or whatnot.

 

[Morac]

It’s fairly secure as there isn’t much anyone can do to your Podcasts through Alexa. Apple wrote the Alexa skills and the login page goes to an Apple login page where you give access to Alexa to access your podcast library. You can also revoke permission in your Apple ID account settings.

I haven’t used this for awhile since I forgot I even set it up. One thing I do know last time I used it was that Apple fixed the multi room support so it works now.

 

[Wolfpup]

It’s fairly secure as there isn’t much anyone can do to your Podcasts through Alexa. Apple wrote the Alexa skills and the login page goes to an Apple login page where you give access to Alexa to access your podcast library. You can also revoke permission in your Apple ID account settings.

I haven’t used this for awhile since I forgot I even set it up. One thing I do know last time I used it was that Apple fixed the multi room support so it works now.

im still leery about punching in an Apple ID into it, but assuming that’s not intercepted, supposedly Apple is only giving permission for the podcast stuff? If so I’d like some better way of authenticating that don’t involve Amazon software ever having access (although at least it can be done on a secure device, not on the amazon hardware itself...)

wish this would work for me, but as described above I think it would be worthless for me even though I use iTunes/podcasts multiple items per day!

I’m semi-tempted by that Amazon FireTV cube (partially because they have a DVR available...) though not super comfortable with amazon having a microphone in my home, and amazon supports their hardware for about 50 minutes, and neither HBO Max nor Peacock are supported on it.

aaaand I’m STILL sort of waiting for a new AppleTV....