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No Spotify, no buy. Being locked into Apple Music is a non-starter for me. It's still mindboggling to me that Siri can't/won't interface with my Spotify account
by markolschesky 9y ago
No Spotify, no buy. Being locked into Apple Music is a non-starter for me. It's still mindboggling to me that Siri can't/won't interface with my Spotify account. My lowly Amazon Echo supports this just fine. In fact, I prefer it to the spotify UX/UI.
- Spivak 9y ago> How dare a company lock me into their ecosystem! I want to be locked into a different ecosystem, dammit!
- aaronblohowiak 9y agoThe echo supports a range of music services, not limited to amazon music. I use it with pandora, for instance.
- watty 9y agoAFAIK Google Home doesn't work with Amazon Music and Echo doesn't work with Google Play Music or Chromecasts.
- blhack 9y agoThis is correct. I have google music and my echo won't play it. Really annoying.
- MichaelGG 9y agoAmazon refuses to even sell Chromecasts or Apple TVs and lies about it if you contact customer support. I've been told that "it's just out of stock", that "we had too many complaints", and even "Apple refuses to let us sell those products". It's why I canceled Amazon Prime (Funny, after being a customer for over a decade, with Prime since it was offered, cancelling was a single click, with zero follow-up or attempt at retention. Not even a "Oh, hey, why did you decide to cancel after so many years?")
- dawnerd 9y agoJust canceled too and was surprised how friction free it was. They sent just one follow up email so far trying to tell me about all the "benefits" I'll lose (which were things I never used anyways).
- Spivak 9y agoRight but there's no material difference between the two. You just have a choice between which master to serve. Amazon's platform isn't more open, they've just allowed other music services to operate on their platform.
- darawk 9y agoAmazon's platform is substantially more open: https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit
- Spivak 9y agoIt looks to be as open as Apple's TvOS, but that's not the point. Having a easygoing gatekeeper protecting your walled garden doesn't make it open.
- darawk 9y agoI wouldn't say that Amazon's is open. I would say it is much more open than Apple's, though.
- pbarnes_1 9y agoDownloading API kits and actually getting those things you built approved for distribution are very different things though.
- darawk 9y agoAmazon approval is basically a rubber stamp. Can't say the same for Apple's. I'm also not aware of Amazon denying anything for competitive purposes. Amazon is happy to let Spotify on their platform, despite having a music service of their own, for instance.
- p49k 9y agoAmazon has also shown that as a company, they're more than willing to engage in anticompetitive behavior when they feel threatened (for example, refusing to sell Chromecasts and Apple TVs, refusing to port Amazon Prime Video to competitors' platforms, etc.) I wouldn't put it past them to drop support for other services when it suits them.
- cptskippy 9y agoThis is same reason why I refuse to use Fire TV, Android TV or Apple TV. I'll stick with Roku until the walled gardens fall. I would suggest Roku make a digital assistant as well but it would probably come in 4 different models ranging from wholly unusable to outrageously expensive, have a purple bow tie, and need to be replaced annually with the latest model.
- the_common_man 9y agoRoku itself is a walled garden. You cannot develop apps for them unless you are blessed by them. Last I checked the SDK was closed (as in, closed to even try out developing for Roku).
- unwiredben 9y agoThe BrightScript API for Roku app development is freely available, and any Roku set-top box or Roku TV can be put in developer mode where you can sideload your own channel. You can also upload private channels where users can install your content via a weblink -- they have to go through certification to be in the on-device Roku Channel Store. All developer docs and samplers are all on GitHub, see https://github.com/rokudev https://github.com/rokudev
- bobsam 9y agoIsn't Android TV pretty open in this regard? After all, it even has a VLC app...
- threeseed 9y agoSiri has an API: https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/ https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/ Not sure why Spotify isn't using it.
- markolschesky 9y agoSiriKit only supports a limited number of domains and intents, of which playing music is not one of them.
- pbarnes_1 9y agoSiri has an "API". A very limited set of things it can do. It's basically a hard coded list of events that get triggered if someone says a particular phrase. Spotify's use case isn't supported.