Christmas truce: Apple Music arrives on Amazon’s Echo device next month

Silicon Valley rivals Apple and Amazon are cosying up next month to give customers an early Christmas present, by enabling Apple Music streaming on Amazon’s Echo speaker.

In an apparent thawing of relations, Amazon announced this morning that Echo owners would be able to ask its voice-activated assistant Alexa to play songs, artists, albums and playlists from Apple Music’s library of 50m tracks from 17 December onwards.

Share prices in both companies remained stable today.

Apple Music, which now boasts 56m global subscribers, has thus far only obeyed commands from its resident virtual assistant, Siri. Alexa will be the first from another company to control the second-largest music streaming system in the world after Spotify – which the Echo already supports.

Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices, said: “Music is one of the most popular features on Alexa—since we launched Alexa four years ago, customers are listening to more music in their homes than ever before.”

“We’re thrilled to bring Apple Music – one of the most popular music services in the US – to Echo customers this holiday,” he added.

The new feature follows swiftly on the heels of a previous deal struck between the tech behemoths, in which Amazon said it would start selling iPhones and iPads in the US, Europe, Japan and India, expanding its previously limited range of Apple products.

Previously, the online retail giant only carried Mac computers and Beats headphones.

But customers wanting to buy an Apple Home Pod, the rival to the Echo, will still have to look elsewhere.