Skip to main content

Alexa will now play Amazon Music on your iPhone or Android phone

Amazon music
Image used with permission by copyright holder
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.

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
What is Amazon Music: everything you need to know
Amazon Music

It's a jungle of music streaming platforms out there, so it stands to reason that Amazon would have one among its massive kingdom of services. And while Amazon Music might not be top of mind among the Spotifys and Apple Musics of the world, you might be surprised by its 100-million-song library, high-resolution and spatial audio offerings, podcast library, Alexa voice control, and a pretty amiable user interface that makes finding music pretty easy.

Amazon Music's subscriptions range from free to its premium Music Unlimited tier, which can be added for $9 per month on top of a subscription to Amazon Prime. However, Amazon recently announced that, as of September 19, this price is going up to $10 per month (more on this below). But they all come with some quirks and features. We're going to break them all down for you to help you choose which, if any, Amazon Music plan is right for you.

Read more
Your next iPhone may have no bezels. Here’s why that could be a problem
iPhone 14 Pro Max laying on top of iPad showing always-on display with wallpaper setting off.

Don’t believe everything you see, but there’s a certain joy in imagining products with a futuristic touch to them. One such fantastical element of the smartphone industry is a truly bezel-free all-screen phone. And as implausible as that sounds, it looks like Apple might be the one to achieve it — and at the biggest scale imaginable.

According to South Korean outlet The Elec, Apple has reportedly asked, “Samsung Display and LG Display to develop an OLED that removes all front bezels from the iPhone.” Apple has been painfully slow at eliminating the bezel on iPhones and continues to sell the iPhone SE (2022), which should ideally exist in an era that is half a decade too persistent.

Read more
How to fast charge your iPhone
iPhone 12 Mini with charger

While they may not be some of the longest-lasting smartphones on the market, modern iPhones boast more than respectable battery life that should be able to get you through an entire day's use without breaking too much of a sweat. Of course, that assumes a lot of things — including a battery that's still relatively new and in good health, plus a usage pattern that doesn't include all-day streaming or gaming.

If you fall into either (or both) of these categories, then overnight charging isn't going to cut it, and you'll want to get your battery topped up again as quickly as you can so you can get back on the road. Thankfully, every iPhone released in the past six years supports much faster charging, but the downside is that with very few exceptions, Apple has never supplied you with the right adapter to get the best possible charging speeds from your iPhone.

Read more