Look out, Siri. You’re no longer the only smart assistant capable of controlling tunes on an iPhone. The latest update to Amazon Alexa places the popular virtual assistant firmly within the Amazon Music streaming app on both iOS and Android, which means that you can tell Alexa what song to play next not only while in your home, but while on your phone, too.
The addition of Alexa to the Amazon Music app promises to combine natural language voice control with a rich, visual app experience. As Amazon noted in a release, “Tens of millions of songs are now at the tip of your tongue as well as the tips of your fingers – wherever you go.”
Using Alexa in the app, regardless of your operating system, is straightforward — simply tap the push-to-talk function in either iOS or Android and start barking out your commands to Alexa. Of course, you’ll have to update the Amazon Music app in order to ensure it has permission to access your microphone. Once you’re ready to start using Alexa, however, you don’t even have to be that specific in your requests. For example, you can tell Alexa, Play the new song by Fifth Harmony,” and the AI assistant will play He Like That.
Alternatively, you can ask Alexa to “Play music for a road trip,” or if you have a song in mind but don’t know the title, just say a few of the lyrics, and Alexa will do the rest.
“Amazon Music customers already know and love Alexa from listening on Echo devices,” stated Steve Boom, vice president of Amazon Music. “Now our mobile listeners can enjoy an entirely new app experience that combines the power and simplicity of Alexa voice controls with the visual richness of the Amazon Music app.”
If, for some reason, you’re not interested in controlling your music with your voice, you can still use the search box in Amazon Music to type in your search queries, but if you ever need (or want) hands-free operation, that’s now an option as well.
Alexa for Amazon Music is available in the U.K., U.S., Germany, and Austria, and it seems reasonable to assume that additional countries could soon enjoy the experience as well.