Apple Music via Amazon Alexa

  • 22 October 2017
  • 33 replies
  • 108960 views

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I am one of the many I am sure, to have purchased an Amazon Alexa after Sonos recent update. I also signed up to Apple Music once integrated with Sonos awhile back, but I am unable to link Apple Music and Amazon Alexa directly which in my view severly limits the point of Amazon Alexa and Sonos working together. I cannot say “Alexa play Parklife by Blur in the lounge” because Alexa does not recognise the Apple Music Library? Is there a work around, or is this on the Sonos/Alexa roadmap? If not, the welcomed integration between Amazon Alexa and Sonos may be not so welcome after all....

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33 replies

The roadmap is to add other voice control platforms and Airplay 2. Options will increase over time. Rome wasn't built in a day.

You can control music by voice once it is playing
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Mike Watts, You and I are in the same boat. I too just purchased Alexa and pretty much all my music is on Apple Music. So, technically Alexa is pretty worthless to me right now.
Same exact boat here. Also would love to control my Apple TV by voice.
Amazon and Apple are bitter rivals. Not much chance Amazon is going to allow Alexa to fully control Apple Music.
Same exact boat here. Also would love to control my Apple TV by voice.

It can't be controlled by Siri? If not, just replace it with an Amazon Fire TV, which comes with a remote with Alexa enabled.

It can't be controlled by Siri? If not, just replace it with an Amazon Fire TV, which comes with a remote with Alexa enabled.


I might consider that. I've been an Apple TV fan for a long time. But upgrading to the new 4K version hasn't happened yet, so it's a good time to re-evaluate the options. How comprehensive is FireTV?
Sonos only seems to “support” Apple Music in a really limited and frustrating fashion!!! Alexa is useless
Given that Apple Music can be installed on Android phones, why Amazon does not allow on its Alexa as well? Amazon and Alexa are different solutions, I am 100% sure Echo (Alexa) sales would increase considerably if Apple Music is enabled!
Given that Apple Music can be installed on Android phones, why Amazon does not allow on its Alexa as well? Amazon and Alexa are different solutions, I am 100% sure Echo (Alexa) sales would increase considerably if Apple Music is enabled!

We don't know if Amazon won't allow Apple on Alexa, Apple doesn't want to be Alexa, or both. As far as sales of Echo increasing, I'm sure Amazon wants that, but I think they get more profit out of selling Amazon music and getting you to buy other things than in sales of the Echo itself. One things for sure, Apple has no interest in increasing sales of Echos.

There may end up being a sweet spot, depending on sales and marketshare, where it makes sense for Apple to be on Amazon, or vice versa, but I wouldn't bet on it.
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I am sick of the excuse that some company doesn't like some other company, the point of an automated house or system is that it works together. Stop trying to decide my options. That being said Alexa should control my sonos, not stream only Alexa contant. I have apple music. I like it. I'm not changing. Turn my sonos on and listen to the music service I use on sonos. Is that too much to ask for? I want to control the device, that is all, turn the sucker on. Play the music I always play on it, the same as if I controlled sonos with the sonos app. THAT IS WHAT CONTROL IS.
Quite frankly - Yes, that is too much to ask. Amazon implements the Alexa SDK and API, and Sonos cannot force Amazon to implement control of services it doesn't support. Until Amazon does implement this feature, if you wish to control Apple Music via voice, you will have to do it via Siri and Airplay 2 when it comes next year.
The idea of tying media to device is very customer unfriendly. It sounds more like an Apple roadblock than an Amazon one - Apple has yet to acknowledge Siri has become outdated and surpassed, and either integrate a better voice control, or produce a stand-alone speaker/hub like Echo or all the rest now filling the space, including the new Sonos One, and Apple should support other popular devices, like Sonos, to broaden appeal of the IOS platform.. It is disapppointing not being able to have full functionality out of Alexa, although many of the other skills are useful, especially because our new Sonos One is in the kitchen - timers, reminders, shopping lists, recipes, conversions, news, weather. Apple is unfriendly in other ways too - if you travel cross-border between Canada and the US, things as simple as installing the Alexa app become a convoluted series of steps and secondary accounts to procure it from the US ITunes Store - not available in Canada. Same with media content from Amazon or Netflix - different licensing in each country so availability and catalogue changes. How come they can licence music like Apple Music seamlessly cross-border, but not TV or movies?
This decision really pissed me off and I will not be purchasing any more Sonos products. I have been a brand advocate for years and have probably influenced dozens of Sonos sales. But I will no longer support or recommend Sonos. Mark my words, now that Sonos is in bed with Amazon, some future software update will break the existing limited Apple Music support. Amazon makes an "Amazon speaker" its called Echo. Why did Sonos feel the need to turn their product into an Amazon speaker too?
This decision really pissed me off and I will not be purchasing any more Sonos products. I have been a brand advocate for years and have probably influenced dozens of Sonos sales. But I will no longer support or recommend Sonos. Mark my words, now that Sonos is in bed with Amazon, some future software update will break the existing limited Apple Music support. Amazon makes an "Amazon speaker" its called Echo. Why did Sonos feel the need to turn their product into an Amazon speaker too?

Good grief! Step on back from the ledge. Sonos is not "turning their product into an Amazon speaker", they are merely teaming up with as many popular voice control assistants as possible and Amazon is just the first. Next is Google and Apple, as Sonos announced they are going to team up with Google to support Google Assistant and Apple for Airplay 2 coming next year. So if you are married to Google, you can choose Google Assistant, Apple fans can choose Airplay 2 and Siri, Amazon fans choose Alexa, and Sonos, as usual, remains service agnostic.
I've got to say it is disappointing that apple music doesn't work with Alexa but patience is a virtue and given time will hopefully take place. It would be good for Sonos to tell us their thoughts
It's not up to Sonos at this point, the support has to come from Amazon.
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Worse yet, I just added to my Sonos system that I have had a while (complete with Apple music)
With the purchase of a pair of Sono One’s (with Alexa built in). Sons made this thing. It’s brand new. And it won’t work with their existing services. That aftwr I bout the original system to play audible books, which stopped working.

Thats it. They are going back. I am
Done.
Apple Music is not on Alexa so it is literally impossible for Sonos to make Apple Music controllable by Alexa. For the bit that matters here Apple Music is not an 'existing service' at all.
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Apple music doesn’t need to be on “Alexa”. It isn’t playing from “Alexa” Alexa only needs a complete interface to Sonos. Alexa takes voice commands and turns them to commands for sonosbtheough an interface to Sonos. Apple music is built in to Sonos. Just as the app doesn’t play the music (you can put an axe through your phone or tablet and Sonos is still connected to the music services) Alexa could easily do the same thing. It in fact does this for the other services. Just not Apple music. Make no mistake. This was a choice. And a bad one. Especially considering the fact that they forgot to mention that the way they built the Sonos One, half of the same machine (Alexa) won’t work with the other half of the same machine (Sonos). It’s a classic cobble
together trying to avoid cometition, and it’s stupid.
It’s a classic cobble
together trying to avoid cometition, and it’s stupid.

Without any judgement on the merits of this specific case, you will see a lot of these in the home automation space as companies struggle to deal with rapidly shifting playgrounds. Sometimes they will even do things which are not user friendly: surprise, surprise:-).
I received the echo Dot for Christmas, I was very impressed with it at first, then I realised that you cannot use the Apple Music service with Amazon Alexa. I don’t think I have used it since.
What a dissapointment, I was just about to go and purchase 2 more play 1s for around the house but until this has been corrected I will hold off. What a shame!
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In my opinion amazon music is better than Apple
Get rid of Apple and go Amazon ... thinking of getting rid of my Spotify and go amazon ... integration with Alexa is superb ... tried it all google apple Spotify and amazon come down to Spotify but now amazon trumps Spotify so amazon get my money

Hopeful one day amazon goes full wireless multi room and surround and I surrender to Amazon jungle
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I am dropping Amazon Music for Apple because Amazon no longer allows uploads to their cloud. Before the change, if I had a track that was not on Amazon I would have the ability to upload it. Not now. I can still control the Apple playlists through the sonos app.
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This is so sad... got an echo and was so excited to try it with Sonos until I kept hearing ‘I don’t have a playlist’... so useless and frustrating. I’m not switching from Apple Music, already have all my playlist and I’m very happy with the family membership. Going to return this to the store, was too good to be true.
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Pourquoi ne pas avoir choisi Google ou Siri de chez Apple ??