Amazon officially launched its Prime Music streaming service on Thursday, streaming over a million ad-free songs to Amazon Prime members as a part of their annual $99 membership. The new service allows users to play curated playlists and add individual songs to custom playlists.
MacRumors notes that Amazon has also rebranded its Amazon Cloud Player iOS app as Amazon Music, which includes a new, refined interface that allows users to access songs on the service, and also includes tools for managing a library and playlists. Users can also download music from Prime Music to a mobile device for offline listening.
As was expected, Amazon’s music catalog appears to be made up only of songs that are older than six months old, likely saving Amazon on royalty costs. Other streaming music services, such as Spotify and Beats Music, offer new releases to their subscribers.
Amazon’s Prime Music now stands alongside the online retailers Prime Instant Video service, which gives Prime Member’s access to a library of movie and TV shows. Prime members also receive free 2-day shipping on most items as a part of their annual membership.
Amazon Prime membership is available to Amazon customers for $99 per year. A free 30-day trial of Prime is available at the Amazon.com website.
