Apple spams people with notifications again, this time promoting Echo’s support for Apple Music

by Georgi Zarkov

Dec 19, 2018, 3:21 AM

Apple spams people with notifications again, this time promoting Echo’s support for Apple Music

When you have an enormous userbase you can reach with a push of a button, it must be tempting to do it when you want to give a boost to one of your products. Apple is usually conservative when using iOS push notifications for advertisement purposes, but recently there’ve been a few cases that made people more annoyed rather than happy to be informed.

First, there was the ad for iPhone Upgrade program, which was reasonable enough, but then people got a notification about a new episode of Carpool Karaoke, which frustrated those who have no interest in the show with its intrusiveness.

Now, Apple is essentially promoting another company’s products, Amazon’s Echo smart speakers, by telling iPhone users that they now support Apple Music, 9to5Mac noticed.

The Alexa powered Echo devices are by far the most popular smart speakers on the market right now, so the addition of Apple Music to them is a notable update since there’s likely a huge overlap between iPhone users and Echo owners. However, Apple has not only its own smart speaker, the HomePod, but also a voice assistant that's a competitor to Alexa. Granted, the HomePod is in the premium segment with its price tag of $350, while Echo devices are on the budget side, but still, it’s uncharacteristic of Apple to give a shout out to another company, even if that will benefit it in the process.

The cooperation between Amazon and Apple appears to be strengthening after Apple officially started selling iPhones through Amazon about a month ago. It seems even Apple is acknowledging that the path to better sales in the States goes through Amazon.

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17 Comments

1. Vokilam

Posts: 1458; Member since: Mar 15, 2018

Amazon probably paid Apple for this. And Cook forgets “customer first” the moment they see green.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 3:39 AM 8

3. worldpeace

Posts: 3135; Member since: Apr 15, 2016

Because customers didn't give them enough "green" this quarter, so they look somewhere else.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 4:16 AM 11

4. Vokilam

you're probably more right then you know.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 4:19 AM 3

5. Phonehex

Posts: 770; Member since: Feb 16, 2016

Not much difference between Xiaomi and Apple considering both are using their phones to advertise their services .

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 5:10 AM 5

8. cmdacos

Posts: 4394; Member since: Nov 01, 2016

Because apple shares data with their business partners, as written in their TOS, I believe the Amazon deal is far more about data collection. Apple gets to absorb all the data Amazon is gathering while still staying true to their marketing spin regarding apple not truly collecting data on you. Maybe Siri will be come useful in the future as a result.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 7:22 AM 1

12. Vokilam

Explain to me how Siri is not useful right now?

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 12:54 PM 0

14. syntaxlord

Posts: 239; Member since: Oct 01, 2018

https://midlifecroesus.com/2018/02/why-does-siri-suck-so-bad-seriously-i-want-to-know/https://www.ped30.com/2018/03/14/apple-why-siri-sucks/https://www.ped30.com/2018/02/23/apple-why-siri-so-bad/https://www.businessinsider.com/why-siri-sucks-2018-5

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 4:26 PM 0

15. Vokilam

I expected someone to just post links to some opinion online. But you need to read it yourself - basically they don’t understand that Siri does not keep your personal info on some servers somewhere like google assistant does and is capable to do quite a lot of assisting without the need of aggregating your personal info. Nevertheless, just because Siri does not collect identifiable info on you doesn’t mean it is not useful! I want to know why cmdacos think that Siri is not useful! I don’t need tag-team answering for each other.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 5:35 PM 0

16. cmdacos

It's well known that Siri underperforms vs the competition. Do an Apple search for it... ;)

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 7:49 PM 1

17. Vokilam

LOL, you have no idea do you? You can’t find one reason why Siri isn’t useful? Can you? Once again - blabbing away catch phrases - but have no clue why...

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 9:29 PM 0

2. Plasticsh1t

Posts: 3109; Member since: Sep 01, 2014

Seems like the homepod isn't really selling that well so they opted with Amazon's offering. Apple needs to reconsider their pricing of their products which is nigh impossible.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 3:44 AM 6

6. Tsepz_GP

Posts: 1227; Member since: Apr 12, 2012

More and more people keep saying this, but it seems Apple is really trying to protect those profit margins, they have become victims of their own success in a very different time to when the iPhone and iPad were new to the market.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 5:15 AM 1

10. Peaceboy

Posts: 640; Member since: Oct 11, 2018

As much as you want apple products to be cheap, I want it to cost more than your kidney so only few of us can afford apple. I hate poor people getting iphone 6 because its cheaper now.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 9:26 AM 0

11. thedizzle

Posts: 205; Member since: Oct 05, 2017

@peaceboy xD. I agree with the iphone 6 doe. Garbage ass phone. At least stick with the 7/8 line.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 11:12 AM 0

7. baldilocks

Posts: 1549; Member since: Dec 14, 2008

Haven’t gotten ANY of these notifications.

posted on Dec 19, 2018, 7:21 AM 0

9. bucknassty

Posts: 1401; Member since: Mar 24, 2017

so.... this is finally an article skewed to apple.... you know very well everyone is snapping up one of those cheap echos to test how these 'smart' speakers work... apple makes a ton of money off services, why not inform your user base that your service can be used somewhere new?