The Amazon Echo is a clever, useful device, one that’s naturally inviting for streaming music.
Before Thursday, whenever you asked the Echo to play music, it would automatically stream from Amazon Prime Music.
You could use Prime Music’s deeper and more popular rival, Spotify, but you specifically had to say “on Spotify” at the end of your command to get it to work. Simply telling Alexa to “play The Strokes” stuck you with Prime Music.
Now, Amazon’s made it so you can bypass that last step. As spotted by The Verge, Echo users can change their device’s default music service to Spotify — or Pandora, for streaming stations — through the web or the Alexa app.
Through the web, you’ll find a “Choose default music service” filter under the “Music Services” option. Through the app, you’ll see a “Customize my music service preferences” option in the Settings menu.
The timing of the move is somewhat curious, given reports last month that claimed Amazon is preparing to launch a beefed up music streaming service that’d more readily compete with Spotify and other rivals like Apple Music.
That said, the ecommerce giant has made it a point to make Alexa more open in recent months. It’s made the digital assistant increasingly available to third parties in that time, be it through software tools or entirely separate devices.
In any case, if you’re a faithful Spotify user and Echo owner, your streaming should be a little more convenient.
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