Its been rumored for a while now and today Amazon finally lifted the veil from its own take at a music streaming service. If initial impressions are anything to go by, the service doesn’t even aim at competing with the likes of Spotify and Rdio.
Available for free to Prime users, the service comes more of an added incentive than the primary reason to subscribe. The music library is very restricted compared to the competition and actually streaming music seems to be a tedious process. The music library is reported to be missing most current hits and lacks content from Universal Music’s catalog. Offline playback capabilities will be available on the Kindle Fire, iOS, Android and PC, Mac devices via Amazon’s Cloud Player. To make up for the limited music library, Amazon seems to be focusing on expertly curated playlists.
Over all, this is definitely not going to draw subscribers of current music streaming services over to Amazon but should serve as a nice bonus for Prime subscribers. Amazon Prime already offers video streaming, expedited free shipping and additional benefits to users for about $119 per year. Today’s launch seems to have been timed keeping in mind the upcoming launch of Amazon’s smartphone.
[Image Credit – TechCrunch]