Oliver Haslam on December 14, 2019, 8:04 pm

Amazon Echo Speakers And Alexa Get Support For Apple Podcasts

The thawing of the icy relationship between Apple and Amazon continues, with the pair striking a deal that sees Apple Podcasts come to Echo speakers. While only initially available in the United States, users can have Alexa play any of 800,000 podcasts that are currently available in the Apple Podcasts directory.

To set up the integration between Alexa and Apple Podcasts users will need to sign into their Apple ID via the Alexa app on their phone. But it’s well worth it because users’ playback history and play state will atomically sync across all of their devices, including their Echo devices.

With the configuration all complete, users can ask Alexa to play or resume podcasts by name, so long as they append “on Apple Podcasts” to the end of the request. From what we’ve heard, it’s working surprisingly well, including commands to skip forwards and backwards throughout the episode.

This is the first time that Apple Podcasts has been available on a third-party device, although it’s possible it won’t be the last. Up until now, the HomePod has been the only speaker capable of natively playing Apple Podcasts, but its lack of traction is an issue there.

And that is clearly something the Echo line of products isn’t struggling with. At this point, it seems almost everyone has a houseful of the things.