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Amazon Echo Update Adds Voice Control for iTunes, Spotify

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Amazon Echo Update Adds Voice Control for iTunes, Spotify

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Amazon has updated its Echo device to support Pandora, iTunes, and Spotify, but there are still a few hitches involved if you’re planning to yell at your invite-only device to control music that’s blasting from it.

You’ll still have to use a paired mobile device to fire up any kind of jam session from your echo—you can’t start playing music just by yelling out the name of your favorite band, favorite app, and waiting for Echo to let ‘er rip. As well, Echo has no idea what these services are unless it’s paired with a device that already has them. For example, if you’re a big Spotify fan, you’ll have to pair your Echo with your smartphone that has the Spotify app on it.

“You can now enjoy hands-free voice control for [Spotify, iTunes, and Pandora]. To get started, simply connect your phone or tablet to Echo by saying ‘Alexa, pair my device.’ After you start playing your music, you can easily control it by saying the wake word and: play, pause, stop, next, or previous,” reads an email from Amazon(Opens in a new window) about Echo’s latest updates.

(Alexa, for those unaware, is the device’s Siri/Cortana/what-have-you—also the word you use to activate its personal assistant, which you can always change to “Amazon” instead if you’d rather yell out a brand than a name.)

Amazon’s update also allows you to use the Echo to mess around with others around your house. Simply yell “Alexa, Simon says” at your device to get Echo to repeat whatever it is you tell it. And, yes, you can have it repeat that which you said via the device’s remote control. We’ll leave this one to your imagination, though we’re definitely excited to see all the YouTube videos the pranksters come up with of their home’s Echo device saying all sorts of horrible things out of the blue.

“In addition to these new features, we’ve made numerous improvements based on your feedback. We have increased response speed and accuracy for many of your questions, expanded coverage of facts from Wikipedia, and added new spelling words and definitions. The companion app is now available on iOS and Android 5.0+, and you can now use the app to bulk delete items from your to-do and shopping lists. And we are just getting started,” reads Amazon’s email.

Amazon Echo owners won’t have to do anything to receive the update; it should push to their devices automatically.

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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazon-echo-update-adds-voice-control-for-itunes-spotify