Update: In a statement to 9to5Mac, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed this was a glitch that has been fixed.
The Apple Music skill for Amazon Alexa speakers has mysteriously disappeared in the United States and several other regions. Several 9to5Mac readers today noticed that asking their Echo to play Apple Music was failing, and the skill is not available to re-add either.
It’s unclear if this is a temporary glitch or an intentional move. As the skill is still available in the UK and some other markets, it seems more like a bug. However, we could not get official confirmation at time of writing of the true cause.
As indicated by the 404 page here, the Apple Music skill is currently unavailable in the US. It also does not appear in the Amazon Alexa store when searching for new integrations.
When it was available, this allowed the Amazon Alexa smart assistant to initiate music playback requests on the linked Apple Music service, like playing playlists from the user’s library, radio stations or albums.
In general, Apple has aggressively rolled out Apple Music support for third-party platforms including competing smart assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa (until the recent outage, that is), as well as releasing Apple Music apps on Android, Amazon Fire TV and Roku sticks.
The Apple Music Alexa integration first rolled out in 2018. Apple Podcasts support rolled out a year after. The skill for Apple Podcasts remains available in the US.
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