Apple Music to Launch on Amazon's Echo Devices the Week of December 17

[Piggie]

...and everything you might say while you're listening to Apple Music. There have been way too many reports of people getting ads on their phones/iPads/computers after commenting on something they said about that product either to Alexa or in the vicinity of Alexa. Just think about all the comments you make in the (former) privacy of your home that might get you fired, embarrass you, mortify your family, or worse, be linked to some illegal activity, e.g., "I had to drive 75 in a 60 in order to get here on time". Does anyone in the tech world have any doubt that Amazon or Alphabet would sell our information to increase profits?
I love my HomePods but am now conflicted after making sure I don't have any devices with Alexa on them in our home. That "was" the beauty of the Apple walled garden/ecosystem (sigh).

I heard about this and spent about 15 mins in front of both my Amazon Alexa and Google home, talking about boats and outboard motors (something I've never looked for on the web ever)
I kept saying that I was looking for a outboard motor for a boat, where can I buy one, what size boat should I have, I really want a boat, I really want a motor for my boat.
I went on and on, over and over again, in as many ways I could think, of, repeating myself many times about boats and outboard motors, wanting them, and where I could buy them.

A week of being on my PC and phone later, not once have I received any ad whatsoever in any way related to boats or outboard motors.

For me that proves there is no listening link, as I'd have seen some ads for what I was speaking for so long about on both devices.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I completely understand your position. You could not pay me to put a Google home or Facebook portal device in my house.

However, I have no such reservations with a HomePod because I trust Apple's commitment to user privacy. I also have a couple of Amazon Echos that I would like to replace with HomePods but at $349 each, that just isn't in the budget right now. Plus, one of my Echos is an Echo Show with a 7" screen that allows me to view my Ring security cameras around the perimeter of my house without getting out of bed.

The good news for me is with the integration of Apple Music as an Alexa Skill, I will be able to drop my Amazon Music Premium subscription (I get a free basic subscription as an Amazon Prime member but I was paying about $3 per month for a premium subscription).

Oh that makes sense now. I’m a prime member but I have a free 3 month subscription to the premium music service. I was looking at my account and it said I’d pay £3 for the subscription after the trial ended. I thought it sounded cheap as I thought it was supposed to be £7.99. I was going to keep it but I won’t bother now as I already subscribe to Apple Music.
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I heard about this and spent about 15 mins in front of both my Amazon Alexa and Google home, talking about boats and outboard motors (something I've never looked for on the web ever)
I kept saying that I was looking for a outboard motor for a boat, where can I buy one, what size boat should I have, I really want a boat, I really want a motor for my boat.
I went on and on, over and over again, in as many ways I could think, of, repeating myself many times about boats and outboard motors, wanting them, and where I could buy them.

A week of being on my PC and phone later, not once have I received any ad whatsoever in any way related to boats or outboard motors.

For me that proves there is no listening link, as I'd have seen some ads for what I was speaking for so long about on both devices.

Even if they are listening I honestly don’t care. I’m not saying anything that anybody would want to hear. All the privacy is nonsense. I’ve been on the internet and I use facebook so I’m well aware that my information is out there. It’s just part and parcel of being online imo.

 

[69Mustang]

My query: Does the Dot or the Echo have nice D/A converters which would make connecting an auxiliary cable to a nice speaker or headphone produce superior sound to bluetooth? I have an LG V40 smart phone which has a 4 channel internal DAC giving wired connections fine sound. My guess, given the low prices, is that the Dot or Echo would not have such a feature.

In an age where a lot of manufacturers consider BT good enough to remove the headphone jack... and consumers by and large have said this is acceptable... does it really matter if the Dot or Echo has such a feature? I don't say that with snark. It's streaming. Generally speaking, people aren't looking for audiophile quality music... hence the streaming.

What you're describing is an edge case scenario. Not really apropos in a generalized discussion. Someone with a receiver could connect a Dot and potentially have great sound. Also edge case. Basically the Echo's offer options for sound reproduction.

 

[WhiteHawk]

Any particular reason why I couldn’t put my Apple Music subscription into an echo and give that to my partner to use in another house?

 

[curtvaughan]

In an age where a lot of manufacturers consider BT good enough to remove the headphone jack... and consumers by and large have said this is acceptable... does it really matter if the Dot or Echo has such a feature? I don't say that with snark. It's streaming. Generally speaking, people aren't looking for audiophile quality music... hence the streaming.

What you're describing is an edge case scenario. Not really apropos in a generalized discussion. Someone with a receiver could connect a Dot and potentially have great sound. Also edge case. Basically the Echo's offer options for sound reproduction.

I agree that my case is perhaps non-apropos to a generalized discussion on smart speakers; however, given that much of this discussion revolves around comparisons of Echo devices to Homepod devices, I make my statement. I might refer you to my previous post #269 in that regard. Perhaps I, and some others of my ilk, am a true audiophile (whatever that might be, or how defined), but I do know that I prefer great sound when listening to high quality music. That requires wired connections to my devices. For news, general radio productions, pop music, et al, I'm totally satisfied with what bluetooth can offer, and that's probably about 75% of my need for sound. Apple has decided to neglect the other 25%, calling it courage or whatever. That's fine, but there are a few of us audio types that have left Apple for that issue. Whether that has an effect on the market, who knows, but I do really like my LG-V40 and the V-20 which preceded it. I will not buy a bluetooth-only device for audio quality. Anyway, thanks for your input.

 

[Karma*Police]

Did not see that coming. Now my echo devices that I placed in a drawer become more useful

True, but they’ll still sound like crap lol. You should eBay them and get a HomePod. That’s what I did.

 

[WhiteHawk]

True, but they’ll still sound like crap lol. You should eBay them and get a HomePod. That’s what I did.

Seems quite a few people forget that the echo has outputs so you can wire it to most speakers and amps, including much better quality speakers than the HomePod, which isn’t that difficult considering the HomePod doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as a lot of people think on here, I know, I have one. Most people haven’t a clue what good audio sounds like.

I’ll be doing just that, picked up some half price echo’s and will wire them to a couple of amps with miles better speakers than my HomePod.

 

[Junior117]

I personally didn't see this coming (although I probably should have now that Apple will be selling their products on Amazon).

This does make me wonder if this means they'll consider adding Apple Music to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as well.

 

[EdT]

iTunes would die a quick death if it was not for iPod. There is absolutely nothing special about iTunes (as a music service). High(er) prices and average software.

iTunes was one of the unquestionably legal download services in the early 2000’s. Other services offered more songs, but most had poor quality or legal problems because of lawsuits by record companies. iTunes dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s about getting rights so people felt safe downloading the songs. iTunes sold iPods.

 

[DotCom2]

So I wonder if you can buy a Sonos One and then use Alexa to play Apple Music...food for thought if you can.

I just bought a Sonos One and haven’t even set it up yet. I don’t have Apple Music but I was wondering the same thing. I might get AM if you can.

 

[jeremiah256]

I'm impressed with Apple's foresight in making deals with Amazon going back to last year. If the U.S. trade war with China gets crazy and goes on for an extended time, being allied with a logistics and services monster like Amazon can't hurt if you need to extend your reach.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at one of Apple's strategy meetings.

 

[DoctorTech]

Seems quite a few people forget that the echo has outputs so you can wire it to most speakers and amps, including much better quality speakers than the HomePod, which isn’t that difficult considering the HomePod doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as a lot of people think on here, I know, I have one. Most people haven’t a clue what good audio sounds like.

I’ll be doing just that, picked up some half price echo’s and will wire them to a couple of amps with miles better speakers than my HomePod.

I agree to a degree. My full size Amazon Echo and Echo Show sound decent to me and my Echo Dots sound decent with a pair of $100 speakers connected to them. However, I can tell a big difference in sound quality between any of my Echos and my HomePod. I know there are systems that are much better than HomePod but I honestly can't tell much difference between them and the HomePod. I've had my hearing checked and while I can still hear the full normal spectrum of frequencies in the human hearing range, there are some frequencies that I don't hear as well as others. For me (and I suspect a lot of other people around my age) I can justify paying for a HomePod because of its quality beats an Echo. But it would be throwing money away to buy a better, more expensive system because I would not be able to tell the difference.

 

[Glockworkorange]

I literally just checked outside to see if the sky was falling.

Or if Hell froze over

 

[WhiteHawk]

I agree to a degree. My full size Amazon Echo and Echo Show sound decent to me and my Echo Dots sound decent with a pair of $100 speakers connected to them. However, I can tell a big difference in sound quality between any of my Echos and my HomePod. I know there are systems that are much better than HomePod but I honestly can't tell much difference between them and the HomePod. I've had my hearing checked and while I can still hear the full normal spectrum of frequencies in the human hearing range, there are some frequencies that I don't hear as well as others. For me (and I suspect a lot of other people around my age) I can justify paying for a HomePod because of its quality beats an Echo. But it would be throwing money away to buy a better, more expensive system because I would not be able to tell the difference.

First up I was not comparing the sound quality of the built in speakers of the HomePods to any of the Echos, obviously the Homepod wins in that department, and clearly it will probably beat an Echo wired to a $100 speaker, but if you reread what I posted you would see I wasn’t talking about that.

A lot of people already have speakers and amps in their homes which are capable of miles better sound than any of the smart speakers available including the HomePod, which again I have to emphasis doesn’t actually sound that good even though it’s better than the competition.

But even if they had to buy a separate speaker for use with an Echo, a speaker or set of speakers that costs $300 - $325 to bring the bundle up to the price of a HomePod would sound noticeably better than the HomePod, especially because the HomePod has its array of small speakers shooting its sound through a plastic shell which is exactly what it sounds like, that’s bad design, if it wasn’t for the fact my family gets to use my Apple Music subscription while I’m not home I would have asked Apple for a refund.

Now with a few Echos and the Apple Music skill I can add one to my bedroom amp and one to the living room amp and get much much better audio than the HomePod is capable of and add a individual speaker to another Echo for just as good or better audio for less money than a HomePod too.

This is fantastic news as far as I’m concerned, the only issue is how long till Apple and Amazon fall out again and they drop support.

 

[chinito77]

This is great news and I hope the start of something better. As someone who works in a department store as an Apple rep, we only sold 1 in the last 5 months. However, people buy lots of Amazon Echos and stuff. I think the HomePod is an amazing looking and high quality device but it doesn't even have bluetooth support. I can't even demo the unit because our store does not have wifi. Waiting for Apple to either massively upgrade the Homepod or just get rid of it.

 

[thingstoponder]

If you can’t better them, join them. Sad.

What would be better? Selling an equivalent device at 10 dollars? Apple isn’t in this market. Putting their services on other platforms is not a bad thing. Imagine if they never released iTunes for Windows.

 

[technole]

Still amazes me that people are happy to have these 'smart' speakers in their homes. Who really trusts the likes of Amazon & particularly Google with your data & privacy? Not me.

Why don't you throw away your iPhone then? We are tracking you there too.

Just dumped my 8 Alexa devices for Google Homes. It’s years ahead in my opinion.

Wrong.

 

[glowplug]

Time to cancel my amazon music subscription.

I gave up on Apple Music and switched to Amazon Music a long time ago, after they dropped 3 of my favorite albums. The way that Apple “curates” their music selection is annoying at best.

 

[Shanghaichica]

True, but they’ll still sound like crap lol. You should eBay them and get a HomePod. That’s what I did.

The regular echo sounds ok. Granted the dot sounds poor and needs to be connected to an external speaker. However the regular echo and echo plus have adequate sound to be used as a standalone device.
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I agree to a degree. My full size Amazon Echo and Echo Show sound decent to me and my Echo Dots sound decent with a pair of $100 speakers connected to them. However, I can tell a big difference in sound quality between any of my Echos and my HomePod. I know there are systems that are much better than HomePod but I honestly can't tell much difference between them and the HomePod. I've had my hearing checked and while I can still hear the full normal spectrum of frequencies in the human hearing range, there are some frequencies that I don't hear as well as others. For me (and I suspect a lot of other people around my age) I can justify paying for a HomePod because of its quality beats an Echo. But it would be throwing money away to buy a better, more expensive system because I would not be able to tell the difference.

Completely agree with this. My regular echo sounds decent. My dots and google mini home need to be connected to external speakers. Whilst the regular echo sounds adequate my HomePods are far superior.

 

[MrGimper]

Seems quite a few people forget that the echo has outputs so you can wire it to most speakers and amps, including much better quality speakers than the HomePod, which isn’t that difficult considering the HomePod doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as a lot of people think on here, I know, I have one. Most people haven’t a clue what good audio sounds like.

I’ll be doing just that, picked up some half price echo’s and will wire them to a couple of amps with miles better speakers than my HomePod.

Over Black Friday I picked up a Marantz NR1608 receiver and Onkyo 5.1.2 speaker set for a decent price. I've connected my living room Dot to it via BT and sounds good. I have Sonos everywhere so what I really want is to pick up a Connect from eBay and then add my 5.1.2 system as a Sonos device via the Connect.

 

[Khedron]

HomePod works with my Apple TV and through that I can use it with movies, TV and YouTube.

Only if everything you watch goes through Apple. Can't watch regular TV, can't watch Blu-ray player, definitely can't game, YouTube must be stream from iOS/tvOS only, etc.

And even then only if you want a 2 second interface lag while AirPlay struggles to keep the audio synced.

So after all these compromises and expense you end up with audio that is a bit better than a cheap portable bluetooth speaker

Not worth it IMO, and a shame because all Apple had to do was unlock the bluetooth capabilities and/or add a jack input (which is especially stupid to exclude since HomePod already needs a wire for power)

Apple killed HomePod with its obsessive need for total control

 

[The Game 161]

What would be better? Selling an equivalent device at 10 dollars? Apple isn’t in this market. Putting their services on other platforms is not a bad thing. Imagine if they never released iTunes for Windows.

Exactly if anything it helps apple gain even more Apple Music customers

 

[Shanghaichica]

Only if everything you watch goes through Apple. Can't watch regular TV, can't watch Blu-ray player, definitely can't game, YouTube must be stream from iOS/tvOS only, etc.

And even then only if you want a 2 second interface lag while AirPlay struggles to keep the audio synced.

So after all these compromises and expense you end up with audio that is a bit better than a cheap portable bluetooth speaker

Not worth it IMO, and a shame because all Apple had to do was unlock the bluetooth capabilities and/or add a jack input (which is especially stupid to exclude since HomePod already needs a wire for power)

Apple killed HomePod with its obsessive need for total control

I think the HomePod will only suit a select group of people. I do have a blu Ray player and a cable subscription but we only watch content through the Apple TV. In fact we wanted to cancel our cable subscription. However we also get our internet and telephone line from the same company and only would save about £5 if we cancelled the Cable so we decided to keep it. So for me the HomePods work well however I’m not completely closed and I also have echos and a google home.

 

[LordVic]

Repeat after me. Apple makes money selling hardware. This won’t help them do that. Apple will not be considered a service company. If this is their hope they need to rethink things. How bout some new hardware instead? I could make a long list of hardware they could make a killing on and that expands their iOS universe and enhances their less than stellar services.

But nope. Let’s make tv shows instead. Lol. Or hope a few Alexa owners buys Apple Music that isn’t exactly a huge profit center.

The problem is they're not catering this to us, the consumer.

This is a business decision for investors favour. Wallstreet has decided that being a hardware manafacturer in tech is not nearly as good a business as services. So this decision is being done to diversify more into services to try and keep stock value high.

I don't disagree with you in principle. They seem to be "aiming" their business decisions for the wrong reasons these days. it doesn't feel like it's about making the best products, but making investors happy.

 

[Rob_2811]

Surprised by this but welcome it as a subscriber to Apple Music, I assume this will work on the Alexa enabled Fire TV models also which is nice.

Gives some hope to their attempts at a TV streaming service aswell, they will need to put that on other platforms if they want to gain real traction.

Seems clear that the HomePod was a bit of a flop.