UPDATE: No sooner had we finished uploading this article, the Apple Music Alexa skill page is no longer 404-ing and the skill is now functioning once again. Storm, meet teacup. Teacup, this is storm. Y’all have fun now.
Original article continues below…
A wide section of Apple Music are currently unable to summon their favourite artists, playlists and albums through Amazon Alexa-powered smart speakers.
In many territories users are unable to use their voice to play music on their Echo speakers, as they can with Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited and other streaming services.
Apple Music has benefitted from Alexa integration for about four years now and its disappearance, albeit perhaps temporary, will be irksome for users of Apple’s streaming service.
The Apple Music Alexa skill has been removed from the Amazon US page and many other markets, a 9to5Mac report points out. However, at this time the skill still appears to be live in the United Kingdom.
Trusted Reviews has contacted Apple and Amazon over the disappearance of the skill to investigate whether it’s a bug, or the sign of the expiration of an agreement between the two companies.
Given, as 9to5Mac points out, the skill remains live in the UK along with the ability to play Apple Podcasts, this is probably a temporary breakage that’ll be back up and running soon.
Apple and Amazon haven’t always gotten along – it took years for Prime Video to launch on Apple TV for example – but it’s hard to imagine a spat causing this feature beneficial to both companies to disappear for good.
We’ll update this article if comment is forthcoming from Apple or Amazon.
