Alexa welcomes Apple Music to Amazon Echo

Update; well i'm wrong above. Numerous press releases refer to enabling a skill, which isn't typically how you enable music services so it's not clear. The USA article doesn't refer to a skill but instead refers to enabling the service like Spotify, which is enabled as a music Service. I guess we'll find out on the 17th.

From my understanding, music requests through the Sonos Beam or One aren't much different from music requests from other Alexa enabled devices and echos. So I wouldn't expect it to work one way but not the other. I'd also guess that there are a few changes that Sonos would need to do on their side, but probably within the cloud only. I'd say Dec. 17 is a real possibility, by Jan 1 is likely, but I'm only speculating.

Personally, I find this partnership rather telling for the market in general. Amazon and Apple are competitors in music services and voice assistance, so why are they doing this? I would guess that sales of the Homepod are going as well as Apple would like, and Amazon does not like Google catching up with them on market share of smart speakers. Makes me wonder if something's going to be done with Siri/Alexa integration at a later date, similar to the Cortana/Alexa integration.

Can we get @Sonos to reply to this thread and clue us in on whether we can now play Apple music using Alexa ?

Thanks! So, Tidal has been available via Alexa for at least a week now. Does it work on Sonos via Alexa? There was never an official announcement about Alexa Cast either, a huge improvement for Amazon Music users. It works, better than Chromecast even, but not a peep from Sonos. Too busy tweeting about a Beastie Boys and colored speakers? :8

Have you tried it?

Tidal? Can’t try it without a subscription. Alexa Cast? Yes, works very well. You’d think Sonos would be shouting it from the rooftops...

There was never an official announcement about Alexa Cast either, a huge improvement for Amazon Music users. It works, better than Chromecast even, but not a peep from Sonos. Too busy tweeting about a Beastie Boys and colored speakers? :8 I suppose if you are going to use an app to play music they would rather have you use the Sonos app to do this? (I guess they do promote airplay) So with alexa cast does it stream from your phone to the speaker like airplay or does it stream from the sono's it self?

I suppose if you are going to use an app to play music they would rather have you use the Sonos app to do this? (I guess they do promote airplay) So with alexa cast does it stream from your phone to the speaker like airplay or does it stream from the sono's it self?

Alexa Cast streams from the cloud, controlled from your phone running the Amazon Music app. The phone doesn’t need to be connected to your WiFi.

There is no indication of that these days. You can control Sonos speakers directly from the Tidal app or airplay from the Tidal app.
I think Sonos finally realized it was hurting sales to have to use the app for everything.
Airplay 2 does not always stream directly from your phone to the device.
For example HomePod siri voice commands will stream music from the music service via internet to the HomePod.

Yes, exactly. Folks love their music apps, and most of them have vastly improved over the last couple years. Most will now wirelessly connect to Sonos speakers in some manner.

Airplay 2 does not always stream directly from your phone to the device.
For example HomePod siri voice commands will stream music from the music service via internet to the HomePod.
yeah only if you have a home pod, If you have sonos the chance of you having a home pod is about nil.

Having a HomePod or not has nothing to do with how Airplay 2 works which is what I was responding to. There are also other scenarios where Airplay 2 pulls directly from the music service.
You are incorrect that people who own Sonos or Homepods might not have both. I myself know many people who have both. I have four Homepods in two stereo pairs and a Beam, Sub, and rear Sonos Ones and two Sonos Ones for outdoors.
The Homepods sound better for music than anything Sonos makes including the Play 5 which is much more expensive. In fact I sold two Play 5's on Craigslist after stereo pairing came put for the Homepods.
I use Sonos for home theater and cheap outdoor speakers and Homepods for music. I also like the 360 coverage since SQ doesn't change as you move around a room.

Alexa Cast streams from the cloud, controlled from your phone running the Amazon Music app. The phone doesn’t need to be connected to your WiFi.
Well that's cool. wish airplay was like that.

As I mentioned above Airplay 2 does in some circumstances pull directly from the music service.

Alexa Cast streams from the cloud, controlled from your phone running the Amazon Music app. The phone doesn’t need to be connected to your WiFi.
Well that's cool. wish airplay was like that.
Apple is always at least three years behind the competition, lol. AirPlay is a dinosaur.

Which tells me you know nothing about Apple, Airplay, and especially Airplay 2.

Enough to know that AirPlay is my last choice, just above BlueTooth, for my iPhone and iPads. It requires much more bandwidth than casting, requires your phone to be on while playing, like BlueTooth, simply isn’t on the same playing field as the competition. Maybe on the HomePod, but having listened, and read the reviews (outside the Apple fanboy rags), the HomePod loses to the Beam, to stereo-paired Ones, and certainly to the Play:5. Virtually every review.

Everything you said is incorrect and that is easily proven but I'm not going to further pollute this thread with responding further. There are plenty of places you can rag on Apple without knowing what you are talking about.

I use Tidal on Sonos 1 and set Alexa to use Tidal as default music service. Works great. I have Apple music too and am excited to see it as an upcoming option. Tidal + Apple music is a great combo.

Enough to know that AirPlay is my last choice, just above BlueTooth, for my iPhone and iPads. It requires much more bandwidth than casting, requires your phone to be on while playing, like BlueTooth, simply isn’t on the same playing field as the competition. Maybe on the HomePod, but having listened, and read the reviews (outside the Apple fanboy rags), the HomePod loses to the Beam, to stereo-paired Ones, and certainly to the Play:5. Virtually every review.

Everything you said is incorrect and that is easily proven but I'm not going to further pollute this thread with responding further. There are plenty of places you can rag on Apple without knowing what you are talking about.

I think chicks was speaking in terms of airplay 2 with Sonos speakers in his first 2 statements, and i have to agree with him. You might not need to stream through your phone/ipad when your speaker is homepod or AppleTV, but you certainly do with Sonos speakers.

I wouldn't necessarily say that casting from a specific app is necessarily better than airplay 2 though. Casting is almost always going to give you a better stream, but airplay, like bluetooth, is not limited to a specific streaming app.

Regarding which speakers sound better, 'better' is always subjective. I've seen reviews pointing both ways, but yes, mostly favoring Sonos. What matters is what you personally prefer.