Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by the Skimlinks, Amazon, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay, affiliate programs. All prices are subject to change, and this article only reflects the prices available at time of publication.
Amazon Prime Music launched this week, giving subscribers access to a million songs as part of their regular Amazon Prime membership. While the catalog isn’t as big as that of rivals Spotify or Rdio, it probably doesn’t have to be:Â Prime Music is more of a perk for existing subscribers than a full-fledged, standalone music service.
For $99 per year, Prime subscribers get access to a selection of streaming movies and TV shows, songs and albums from popular and obscure artists, the ability to borrow up to one eBook per month, and free 2-day shipping on millions of physical items.
Can’t find free versions of the songs, movies, or eBooks you want in the Prime library? No problem… you can probably buy them from Amazon… the company uses Prime to hook you on its services so it can sell you more stuff. But I’m OK with that, since for $99 per year Amazon offers some of the best features of Netflix, Spotify, and Oyster and even if it doesn’t have the same selection of content, there’s plenty of stuff worth watching, listening to, or reading.
You can’t always get what you want (like the Rolling Stones version of the iconic song), but if you try sometimes, you might find… you get something, like a selection of covers of the tune. Or you could just browse the Prime library for music from artists you actually do want to hear.
Here’s a roundup of tech news and tips from around the web.
- Having a hard time finding music included in Amazon Prime Music streaming? Here’s a list of 100 popular artists
Amazon’s streaming music service includes a million songs, but it doesn’t include recent hits or any tracks from Universal Music group. That makes it easier to find good tunes by browsing than by searching, since there’s a good chance you won’t find what you’re searching for.. but if you browse you’ll probably find something good. Here’s a place to get started. [Amazon Prime Music] - Slightly smaller Samsung smartwatch hits the FCC
There aren’t many details about this watch, but it seems to be 10mm more narrow than a Gear 2, suggesting it could have a different layout and might even be a watch running Android Gear instead of Samsung’s Tizen software. Or maybe we’re reading too much into the few details available. [SamMobile] - Raspberry Pi mini PC sales hit the 3 million mark
The tiny computer sells for as little as $25, has attracted a strong developer community, and an awful lot of customers. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has sold more than 3 million little computers in the past few years. [Raspberry Pi] - Unannounced Slingbox M1 hits the FCC
It looks like there’s a new Slingbox on the way, and this place-shifting media streamer could be the smallest yet… and maybe the cheapest? [Zatz Not Funny] - Google hasn’t forgotten about Google Voice, rolls out a minor update
One of these years Google might get around to merging its voicemail transcription, call-forwarding, voice-over-IP service with Hangouts. Or maybe it’ll just kill Google Voice off. For now, the team has updated its Android app for the first time in nearly a year, giving users warnings about international phone calls. [Android Police] - Xiaomi MiPad gets the unboxing, dissection treatment
The Mi Pad is the first tablet to feature an NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, and now that folks in China are starting to get their hands on the tablet, they’re doing fun things like ripping it apart. [Mike Cane] - Report: Google Fit will be a central Android service bringing data from your health apps and devices together
Apple’s got “Healthkit.”. Samsung’s got “Sami.” Soon Google could have Google Fit, a central hub that developers can tap into so that your health data is accessible across multiple apps. [Forbes] - Amazon says 75% of Kindle Fire HDX questions come through the Mayday button, average response time is 9.75 seconds
Apparently folks have asked for things including help getting through a particularly tough level on Angry Birds, to “can you draw a picture of a rainbow for me?” Amazon doesn’t seem to mind — the company has highlighted unusual requests in a self-congratulatory press release. [Amazon] - How to install Android 4.4 KitKat on the ZTE Open C Firefox OS smartphone
Probably the most special thing about the ZTE Open C is that this inexpensive phone runs Firefox OS. But if you’d rather run Android 4.4 KitKat on it, you can do that too.
You can keep up on the latest news by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
“Sorry, this content is not available in your region, We have too many Lawyers and they won’t let us take all the money you want to give us. So just stop bothering us and go somewhere else and pirate the content.”
Is the ‘cant’ in the headline meant to be a pun? If so, I don’t get it. Maybe just a glaring typo.
I love Prime. I got it for the free 2 day shipping, I enjoy the free movies and music. How can anyone complain about the value added to this wonderful package?
It’s only getting better too. If they can improve the Music app on Windows and Android and add some more music to their Prime catalog (which they are doing). Spotify may have to watch out. Likewise, if they were able to get more movies and tv series, make some good TV series and improve on the apps in their respective environments (and ffs add an app for Windows and Android) then I’d probably be able to save $8 on Netflix.
As it is though, it’s 3rd in line for me on all fronts. I use Spotify, then Google Music then Prime Music for Music and Netflix then Hulu then Prime Video for Movies and TV. No complaints here. Whatever Netflix and Hulu don’t have, I generally find on Prime and if I somehow have issues with Spotify or Google Music, Prime will be there to back me up.
Too bad Amazon’s 2 day shipping sometimes becomes 3-4 business day shipping especially outside the US. Time from order to ship sometimes takes longer too.
For those who don’t use the other “free” perks, Prime is becoming not a worthwhile purchase.
They should have a cheaper shipping only service. Too bad it may seem like they’re nickel and diming people with such and a la carte type pricing but it’d still be better for those who don’t use these other services.
It just seems like you’re paying for things you didn’t want. If all these services are worth $100 then free 2 day shipping must be worth less. Amazon isn’t a charity.