Apple Music Partners Up With Google Assistant

It seems like Apple Music is going to have a new partner.

Earlier yesterday, VentureBeat reported that Google Home app’s latest version listed the music service of Apple under its “More Music Services.” The button where you can click to connect to your Apple Music account hasn’t worked yet. But Apple's presence in the app indicates a clear sign of an upcoming announcement.

When being asked about this, a spokesperson from Google offered a statement over email, which read:

At this moment, the service listing has disappeared from the app. Although neither company is ready to announce this collaboration, Apple Music could soon make a debut on the app.

If Apple's service comes to the Google Home app, users can ask Google Assistant (a smart voice control), to play the song of their choice. It is expected that users will be able to choose Apple Music as their default music service, just like other services offered by Google, like YouTube Music, Pandora, and Spotify. Google Assistant would then search Apple Music to find and play your requested song.

At the moment, you can command Google Assistant on your phone to search for the music that you want to play. The music service of Apple started to come to smart speakers besides its own HomePod last year as Apple Music became one option on the series of Echo speakers of Amazon. The $350 HomePod is the only speaker that Apple offers while both Google and Amazon have a wide range of smart speakers that come at different prices.

Compared to other smart speakers on the market, the HomePod lacks in functionality and smart home controls. Its only advantage is that it is a product of Apple, so it has all of Apple’s services. If Apple’s service becomes available on the Google Home app, the HomePod will be less appealing. Apple Music subscribers still get to choose though.