Apple Music could be headed to Google Home devices, according to a new leak.
The Google Home app reportedly now lists Apple Music as an integrated service, although attempting to sign in or add the service to the smart home speaker does not currently work.
Apple Music joined Amazon Echo in late 2018, so Google Home is the next logical step for Apple, who looks to increase its services revenue and forges new ties with rivals such as Google and Samsung to make its software and services more widely available.
Indeed, Apple also announced that AirPlay and iTunes would be available on a suite of smart TVs in 2019, including Sony, LG, Vizio, and Samsung devices.
What is Google Home?
Google Home is Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod and is a popular choice around the world. According to a report in Forbes, Google Home is now as – if not more – popular than the Echo series.
In the first quarter of 2017, Amazon was responsible for almost 80% of the smart speaker market, while Google had 19.3%. But in the same quarter of 2018, Google sold more than a third of all smart speakers, at the same time as Amazon’s share plummeted to 27.7%. The company sold more than 3.2 million of its Google Home and Home Mini devices, versus the 2.5 million Echo devices shipped by Amazon in Q1 2018.
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why the Google Home is such a success is because Google has the smartest AI assistant in the world, powered by Google Assistant and the billions of websites that Google has indexed for its search engines.
Google Home is, therefore, infinitely smarter and more responsive than other smart speakers on the market.
HomePod: A small player
According to Strategy Analytics, Apple has sound between 1-1.5 million HomePods around the world, perhaps in part due to the $349-price tag, significantly more than the Echo and Google Home, priced from $40 to $129 respectively.
Apple could choose to add a lower cost smart speaker to its lineup in 2019 to increase demand or position itself as a premium brand.
