Spotify and Apple have long been betting heavily on podcasts and now it’s Amazon’s turn. The company has just announced that, finally, Amazon Music integra los podcasts in its application for iOS and Android in Spain, although they can also be heard on the Amazon Echo and on the web.
The key to the service lies in the integration with Alexa, since users will be able to ask the assistant with their voice to start the playback of an episode and listen to it on any device, be it mobile, Echo Auto or a smart speaker. It should be noted that podcasts can be listened to in any Amazon Music subscription plan.
Podcasts reach Amazon Music in Spain
Starting today, Amazon Music users will find a new section in the service’s app: podcasts. In it you will find well-known podcasts and recommendations made “by Amazon Music experts.” Craig Strachan, Head of Podcasts Europe at Amazon, notes that in Spain they will not have exclusive launch content, but that is something that they will analyze as the platform develops. What there will be is local content in our language.
“We launched the podcasts in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Japan, Mexico and Brazil last year. In those countries we have experimented with exclusive content. For the launch in Spain we will not have exclusive content, although we will have a very good selection local content. But that will be something we’ll study as we develop. So it’s not a day one thing, but it’s definitely something we’re interested in. “- Craig Strachan, Head of Podcast Europe at Amazon.
As is already the case in Spotify and other podcast apps, in the app we can see the programs ordered by categories, follow those that interest us, download them to listen offline and add them to playlists. The player, for its part, allows you to go forward and backward, as well as set a sleep timer or modify the playback speed.
Alexa, of course, will be fully integrated into the platform. We can ask the assistant to put on a specific program or to play the latest episode of a specific podcast. Playback will be synchronized between all devices with Alexa, so it can be continued on any of them no need to log in or link a device.
Podcasts will be available at no additional cost on the platform. That is, it does not matter if we are users of Amazon Music Free, Amazon Music Prime o Amazon Music Unlimited. In any of the cases we can listen to the podcasts. The ones that are not included are the exclusive Audible podcasts (at least for now), as they are different platforms.
What’s more, Strachan himself points out that Audible and Amazon Music have different audiences and focuses, which is why they also have no plans to integrate the two services into one more generic audio macroservice or launching a subscription that includes access to Music and Audible.