AiC Episode 94

In this episode, Teri will talk about the music options that we now have available to us when using our Echo devices with Amazon Alexa.

Enjoy!

There have been some big news coming out in Canada in the last week or so regarding the music options. One of the most requested features, which Teri has gotten lots of emails and questions about, is Apple Music being made available in Canada with the Amazon Echo Devices. The feature was recently launched and lots of people are very happy about it.

The Different Options

  • When you go into your Amazon Alexa app and click on the menu icon (hamburger icon), then you will see that you have an option to click on music.
  • The options include Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn, Apple Music, and Deezer. The top three options in terms of popularity are Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music.

Spotify

  • It’s the big goliath as far as music streaming services are concerned.
  • It has a 3-month pre-trial that one can try for free. If one chooses to subscribe, there is a $9.99 per month individual plan which means that one can only listen on one account at a time. This also means that when a user has multiple Echo devices and they are listening to a particular song on one device, no one else can listen to different music on another device. If somebody tries to listen to music on that second device, then it will play the same music on the first device, stop the music on the first device, or change it to the song that was last requested.
  • If a user is looking for more flexibility than on the individual plan, then there is the family plan for $14.99 per month, which allows up to six different people and six different devices to be playing six different things at the same time.
  • They also have the student plan for $4.99 per month.

Music Options for Amazon Alexa in Canada

Apple Music

  • They have a 3-month pre-trial, the individual plan for $9.99 per month, the family plan for $14.99 per month, and the student plan for $4.99 per month.
  • The offers in these plans is similar to those in Spotify’s plans.

Amazon Music

  • Amazon has different pricing for their Amazon Music service, but the prices depend on whether or not a user is a Prime member or not.
  • They have two levels, Amazon Prime Music and Amazon Unlimited Music.
  • If one is not a Prime member, the Amazon Music Unlimited (comparable to Spotify and Apple Music) plans are priced the same as Spotify’s, but instead of having a student plan, they have the “Single Device Plan” which allows a user to only use the service on one single Echo device for just $3.99 per month.
  • If one is a Prime subscriber, they automatically get Amazon Prime Music which provides users with access to about two million songs, but it doesn’t compare to Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Unlimited, which have tens of millions of songs. When new releases come out, they’re never available on Amazon Prime as soon as they are on the other platforms.
  • In Amazon Unlimited, the pricing is a little different. For Prime members, they get Amazon Unlimited for $7.99 per month for the individual account. Users can also get more of a discount if they pay annually ($79 per year which has two months for free). The family plan is priced at $14.99 and can be paid annually at $149 with two months free.

Setting Up a Music Service

  • Go to the Alexa app, click on the menu icon on the top left corner. You will see an option to click on music where you will find a number of services listed with plus signs that you can click on to add a service. Once you click on that, you’ll just follow the prompts.
  • There will be some account linking because you’ll have to link your account to your Alexa app.

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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