by Dan Moren
Apple Podcasts now available on the Amazon Echo
Generally, when I want to listen to a podcast on the Sonos One in my kitchen (usually while I’m cooking or washing dishes), I use my iPhone and AirPlay it to the smart speaker. Which seems silly, because, you know, I should be able to just request the podcast I want by voice. But in the past I’ve had mixed results getting it to play exactly the podcast I want.
That’s no longer the case, as Amazon announced this morning that it will now offer integration with Apple Podcasts. This means that not only can you tell Alexa to play any of the shows in Apple’s podcast directory, but, if you log in with your Apple ID it will even sync your playback position with the Apple Podcasts app.
Just go to the Alexa app on your iOS device, and under Settings > Music & Podcasts you should see Apple Podcasts listed under services. (It didn’t immediately appear for me, but quitting and relaunching the app made it show up.)
By default, you have to tell Alexa to play a show “from Apple Podcasts,” but under Default Services, you can set it to check Apple Podcasts without having to specify. Once you’ve got that set up, just say “play the latest episode of Clockwise” and away you go!
And, sure enough, when I jumped over to the podcast app on my iPhone, it picked up right where I’d left off on my Echo.
This is one of those small improvements that definitely makes life way easier for those who use both Echo smart speakers and Apple Podcasts–and I’m going to bet there are a few of them out there.