After weeks of rumors and a leak last night, Amazon has officially unveiled its Amazon Prime Music streaming service.
The e-commerce giant says the new service has over a million tracks, hundreds of curated playlists and allows for unlimited streaming without any ads as long as you are a Prime subscriber. Prime costs $99 per year and offers free 2-day shipping on millions of products, free access to Amazon's streaming movie/TV catalog and hundreds of thousands of books for free via Kindle.
While the deal is certainly great for Prime users, there are some notable songs and artists missing. As of writing, Universal Music Group's entire catalog is not available, unless you want to purchase the tracks via Aamzon MP3. Additionally, there are no brand new tracks like you would find on Spotify, as all the tracks available are older than six months.
"When Prime launched nine years ago, the program offered Free Two-Day Shipping on one million items. Today, that selection has grown to over 20 million items. Prime Instant Video now offers unlimited streaming of more than 40,000 movies and TV episodes, up from 5,000 at launch three years ago. And the Kindle Owners' Lending Library now features more than half a million books to borrow for free," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. "Today we're introducing Prime Music--more than a million songs from some of music's best artists, plus hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists, all at no additional cost. Prime Music is the latest great addition for Prime members and we think they're going to love it."
Amazon has updated the Amazon MP3 app on iOS and Android to "Amazon Music" and the download is free. Log in and you have access to the tracks. It automatically merges with your own tracks you have stored with Amazon, allowing for an expanded catalog. You can of course play it at home on Macs and PCs.
Prime Music also allows for offline playing, so you can download a playlist of tracks when connected to Wi-Fi and listen to it later without killing your monthly LTE data plan.
Take a look here: Amazon Prime Music
While the deal is certainly great for Prime users, there are some notable songs and artists missing. As of writing, Universal Music Group's entire catalog is not available, unless you want to purchase the tracks via Aamzon MP3. Additionally, there are no brand new tracks like you would find on Spotify, as all the tracks available are older than six months.
"When Prime launched nine years ago, the program offered Free Two-Day Shipping on one million items. Today, that selection has grown to over 20 million items. Prime Instant Video now offers unlimited streaming of more than 40,000 movies and TV episodes, up from 5,000 at launch three years ago. And the Kindle Owners' Lending Library now features more than half a million books to borrow for free," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. "Today we're introducing Prime Music--more than a million songs from some of music's best artists, plus hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists, all at no additional cost. Prime Music is the latest great addition for Prime members and we think they're going to love it."
Amazon has updated the Amazon MP3 app on iOS and Android to "Amazon Music" and the download is free. Log in and you have access to the tracks. It automatically merges with your own tracks you have stored with Amazon, allowing for an expanded catalog. You can of course play it at home on Macs and PCs.
Prime Music also allows for offline playing, so you can download a playlist of tracks when connected to Wi-Fi and listen to it later without killing your monthly LTE data plan.
Take a look here: Amazon Prime Music
