What Type of Service is Amazon Prime Music?
At first glance you might think that Amazon Prime Music has something to do with the company's successful music download service, Amazon MP3. However, Amazon Prime Music is a separate entity that allows you to stream songs from the cloud rather than download digital music files as you would using Amazon's MP3 store.
Is The Service Free?
No it isn't. It comes as part of the Amazon Prime membership.
Other competing streaming music services like Spotify offer a free ad-supported account, but the only way to get Prime Music is to either subscribe to Amazon Prime, Amazon Mom, or Amazon Student memberships.
However, you can test drive the streaming music service for free if you take out a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime or Amazon Mom. This way you can at least see if it's worth the membership (along with the other benefits you'll get) before financially committing.
What Does Prime Music Offer?
Prime Music offers a library of songs and albums which can be streamed to a computer (PC / Mac) and a wide variety of mobile devices. As you might expect, the music is free from advertisements and can be streamed without limits.
The service has a relatively small library of songs and albums compared to other established streaming music services such as Spotify, Rdio, and Beats Music. However, as previously mentioned it comes free with an Amazon Prime subscription -- so, if you are already a Prime member, then along with unlimited movies, TV shows, and Kindle books, you've basically got access to a streaming music service at no extra cost.
As well as being able to cherry pick songs and albums there are also professionally curated playlists. These are compilations of songs that fit into familiar themes -- genre, artist, etc. You can also add songs that you've discovered while browsing Amazon's library to your own custom playlists.
Can I Get it Where I Live?
Currently the Amazon Prime Music service is available in just two countries -- the United States and Puerto Rico. This number is expected to change in the future (as was the case when Amazon MP3 first launched).
What Are The Different Ways I Can Listen to Music on Amazon Prime Music?
Like the majority of streaming music services, Amazon Prime Music offers a flexible way to listen to music. The main options available are:
- Computer (PC and Mac)
- Amazon Devices Currently the devices that you can use with Prime Music are: Kindle Fire (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD, and Kindle Fire HDX
- Smartphones/ Tablets There are apps that you can download for Android (version 4.0+) and iOS (6 or higher).
Can I listen to Songs Offline?
Yes. Amazon Prime Music has an offline mode that enables you to download songs to your mobile device. This content is stored locally (for use solely within the app) so you can listen without needing an Internet connection. At the time of writing offline mode isn't available for desktop computers.