The Echo has an overwhelmingly commanding lead in this market.
I'll be interested to see how much the Google home devices have caught up as they were out selling Amazon echos. If you have an Android device it really is a bit of a no-brainer to buy the Google assistant device as preference for seamless integration.
Apple putting Apple Music on Amazon devices makes no sense to me. It does nothing to enhance Apple’s ecosystem. All it does is allow you to stream music Apple doesn’t own using another voice platform. The amount of extra services revenue they’ll get is a rounding error on their financials. And who at Apple thinks it’s a good idea for the company to be promoting Alexa? WTF? I feel bad for the HomePod team. Apparently employees who work on that product didn’t know anything about this Apple Music deal with Amazon and are not happy about it.
How is this really that different than Apple Music on Android or iTunes on Windows?
The Echo has an overwhelmingly commanding lead in this market. The reality is there are many households that are all in on Apple but also have quite a few Amazon Echos around the house. Myself included. I want one of these devices in pretty much every room and that is simply not practical, not just from a cost perspective but also from a size perspective. They are simply to large for some of the places I have Echo Dots.
The way I look at it, the HomePod is the equivalent of the iPod classic. It’s big, expensive, and more than most people want or need. The iPod really took off when the iPod mini was released. The HomePod is still waiting for it’s iPod mini equivalent.
I have no desire to play in the Amazon (or Google) ecosystem. The point is this does not benefit the Apple ecosystem or help sell Apple hardware, to allow Apple Music on an Echo. It benefits only Alexa users and the Amazon ecosystem. Amazon stands to sell more Echo’s to existing Apple Music customers than Apple adds Apple Music subs. Apple will make penny’s off the Apple Music subs that may come. I want Apple to care about Siri and HomePod and this decision shows some short sightedness while not taking voice or their own product seriously.
A year ago I would have said ‘Give apple time, once HomePod comes out they will put the resources into Siri’. Here we are and Apple is conceding the space for no particular reason. Maybe Apple knows something we dont RE: voice tech OR Jeff Bezos and his army 10,000 employees working on Alexa know something.
Apple is clearly concerned about Prime customers (of which there are tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions) deciding they don't need to also pay for Apple Music. That is a much bigger concern than someone deciding to buy a $30 speaker instead of a $300 speaker.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2018/05/25/massive-reversal-google-home-sales-explode-483-to-beat-amazon-for-smart-speaker-crown/
Apple Music has been available on Google Play for even "iKnockoff's" for about three years.