It’s hard to avoid being impressed with Amazon these days with so many announcements recently that deliver so many improvements; the latest news brings Prime Stations to Android users.
A lot has changed in the world of music: there was a time when having the latest release from your favourite artist meant traveling to a brick-and-mortar retail store and purchasing an entire album. Later, it became easy to download it (legally in many cases, illegally in others). Even later still, online music stores allowed you grab tracks one at a time (for a low, and often very reasonable cost). Now, it’s all about ‘radio’ (but it’s not your mother’s radio, so to speak).
Many options exist, some are good and others are better. Some are free but cluttered with advertisements. Some come with a subscription fee that will add features and remove the stuff you don’t want. Either way, the concept is the same: streaming music with customizable playlists that turn you into the DJ.
To me, the benefit of Prime Stations being available for Android is all about consolidation. You can subscribe yourself to death: small fees here and there that add up to bigger dollars in the end. Amazon understands, which is why there are so many perks to their Prime service.
Functioning as a piece of Amazon Prime Music, Prime Stations allows you to select from a wide variety of existing radio stations that are created and organized by genre –from there, music will play (or pause, or repeat, or skip… based on your input) and adapt to your preferences (just like or dislike songs as they play… the more feedback you give, the more personalized the station will become).
Prime Stations has been around a while for other platforms, but by finding its way to your smartphone it may just become a serious competitor of other high-profile services offering (pretty much) the same thing (think Pandora and Spotify, who should likely be a little concerned now).
Already using Prime? Get started with Prime Stations on your Android device by downloading Amazon Music with Prime Music.
Jillian Koskie is an experienced software developer, content writer, project manager and usability design expert. With over 17 years in these roles, Jillian has enjoyed applying her skill-set to assist clients and users across a wide variety of sectors including: legal, health, and financial services. Combining these professional opportunities with a love of technology, Jillian is pleased to contribute articles, opinions, and advice to numerous news outlets, websites, and publications.