At the end of July, Amazon updated its Cloud Player to be in fighting form as an iTunes killer, with a load of new audio features like Scan and Match technology and licensing deals with a number of labels. And at the time, Amazon said that Sonos support would be “coming soon.” Today, that functionality has arrived, with the Cloud Player now working on the Sonos Wireless HiFi System.
This will mean that users who store music in Amazon’s Cloud Player will now be able to stream that music over Sonos’ kit. Amazon says it will be adding more support for more devices later this year. Roku is likely to be next in line, judging from this — although an Amazon spokesperson would not confirm to TechCrunch when the exact date might be.
With Cloud Player now able to stream over Kindle Fire, Android devices, iOS Apple devices, Mac and PC computers, and now Sonos, Amazon has ramped up the ubiquity of its music service one more notch. The move gives Amazon the ability to snag in further users, to add to the “millions” it says are already using the Cloud Player.
“Our goal is to enable customers to enjoy all their music, wherever they are, and on any device. Launching on Sonos today is an important part of that strategy, as our customers have been asking us to add Sonos to the list of compatible Cloud Player devices ever since we first launched Cloud Player,” said Steve Boom, vice president of Digital Music for Amazon, said in a statement. “We will continue to add support for more devices and platforms later this year.”
Amazon has been aggressive in its attempt to wrest some market share away from Apple, whose iTunes remains the market leader for digital music sales. The cloud-based Amazon service lets users buy music from its own library of 20 million tracks, as well as import music as well from iTunes and their CDs, but importing comes under Amazon’s freemium model: All Amazon purchases plus the first 250 imported songs are stored for free. However, customers must pay $24.99 a year to import and store up to 250,000 tracks beyond that first 250.
Meanwhile, for Sonos, this is another example of how the wireless HiFi company is building up its own usefulness. The company already allows for streaming of a user’s iTunes library, as well as their Spotify collections and a variety of radio stations, among other music sources.