Although Apple Podcasts may not be flawless, its ability to seamlessly play across all your HomeKit devices, ensuring you never miss out on the hilarity of the Office Ladies, is a huge advantage. And now, if you have Amazon's Alexa in your home, you can use it to continue listening to your podcasts from where you last left off, as long as you reside in one of nearly 50 countries.
Apple has recently updated the Podcasts format, as stated in a new support document, enabling the linking of Alexa and Apple IDs. This allows you to effortlessly listen to podcasts from your iPad or iPhone on your Alexa devices.
Apple Podcasts on more devices
According to Apple's support document, this feature is available in a list of 50 countries: "Apple Podcasts for Alexa is only available in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye, United Kingdom, and United States." The document also provides instructions on how to set up Alexa, which appear to be straightforward.
This further expands Apple's range of software that can be controlled using Amazon's smart home standard, joining Apple Music. With the ability to control Apple Podcasts from a Fire TV or Amazon Echo speaker, there are now more choices available for listening to your favorite podcasts than ever before.
However, Spotify still outshines the competition in this aspect, as it offers everything in one app that can be easily controlled with most smart home standards, including HomePod and Siri. Apple Music and Apple Podcasts still have some progress to make before they become as widely available and convenient, but they are heading in the right direction.
