In depth: Wet Wet Wet: The best ways to listen to music in your bathroom

The ablutions that begin each day are dull and lifeless, while bathing in silence is one of life's little missed opportunities.

What about that album you downloaded and haven't listened to yet? Or that podcast that could change your life?

Since few want to take their precious smartphone anywhere near the moist confines of a bathroom, let alone a bath, we've put together some options for tunes on the toilet and songs in the shower.

While novelties like the iDuck Wireless Waterproof Speaker will suit some, there are some serious waterproof Bluetooth speakers available that offer stunning audio quality as well as versatility.

Perhaps the finest is the splash-proof Braven BRV-1, which can't be dunked under water, but it can take a splash or two. Completely weather-proof, the 890g BRV-1's subwoofers offer the kind of bass you'll never hear from a smartphone's speakers, and it comes with a 3.5mm stereo jack and a built-in mic for hands-free calls, too. The BRV-1's battery charges via microUSB and keeps on going for around 12 hours.

Close competitor the Grace Digital ECOXBT Waterproof Speaker gives 10 hours of music and adds grab handles on each side.

The ECOXBT is a waterproof wireless wonder

Another option is the Sonixx BeachBox Wireless Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker, which comes with a rugged, rubberised shockproof and splash-proof design. Though best left on a shelf rather than taken into the shower cubicle itself, the BeachBox is big on sound quality thanks to its compatibility with APT-X lossless Bluetooth streaming. It includes an aux-in for hooking-up a smartphone and, for owners of flashy Android devices, the BeachBox also includes NFC for one-touch tap pairing.

For only £5.96 (about US$9, AU$11) you can get a the tiny 6 x 6 x 5cm TechCode Mini Ultra Portable Waterproof Bluetooth Wireless Stereo, which sticks to the wall and offers six hours of music when paired to a smartphone left outside of shower.

Savvy smartphone owners with waterproof phones won't need any of these gadgets, though such handsets are still relatively rare. However, phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S5, Sony Xperia Z3 and Sony Xperia M2 Aqua can all happily be dunked in the bath/shower and survive.

The Galaxy S5 boasts IP67 rating (dunk it a metre underwater for 30 minutes) while the Xperia Z3 reaches IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes) and the Xperia M2 Aqua also has a rating of IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes).

Sony's Xperia phones have been waterproof for a few years

Crucially, the speakers on flagship smartphones like the Galaxy S5 and Xperia Z3 are a cut above, too.

There are other smartphones that can be used in the bathroom, too, including a range of handsets from niche manufacturer Kyocera (such as the Kyocera Hydro Elite and the Kyocera Hydro Life) and both the Motorola Moto G and HTC One M8, both of which can happily sit on a shelf in a misty bathroom, they just can't join you in the shower.

There are a plethora of splash-proof AM/FM radios that will give you some aquatic entertainment. A cheap option is Sony's ICF-S79W AM/FM/Weather Band Digital Tuner Shower Radio, which boasts a great reception.

Waterproof radios are usually cheap AM/FM affairs

There's also the Abco Tech Waterproof Wireless Bluetooth Shower Speaker & Handsfree Speakerphone, which has a sucker to fix onto a tiled wall or shower enclosure. The battery last for up to 15 hours, and it pairs automatically to your phone after the initial set-up.

There's a pricier version that adds an FM radio, too and the equally diminutive Aquabourne FM Bath/Beach/Shower radio adds an aux-in for attaching a smartphone.

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Prizm Plays Music You Like To Transform Your Living Room Into Your Favorite Coffee Shop

Remember the last time you went to the same coffee shop or bar because the staff tends to play music you like and you don’t have to pick the next song? Prizm is a neat little pyramid add-on for your sound system to transform your living room into this coffee shop you like. The French startup is just beginning the last week of its Kickstarter campaign of its $129 smart music player for your home.

If you want to use Prizm to play music, you just have to press the play button and that’s it. Prizm will stream music directly from Spotify, Deezer and SoundCloud based on your favorite genres and tracks. You don’t have to launch anything on your phone or computer. It’s like a physical Pandora-like service for your home.

“The key advantage compared to existing solution is that Prizm is both instant and context-aware,” co-founder Pierre Gochgarian told me. “Our device automates what every music service tries to do with their playlists — ‘Wake Up’, ‘Dinner Party’, etc.”

Behind the scene, Prizm detects who is in the room using the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from your phone. If someone else is home as well, Prizm will adapt the track list to find songs that suit you both.

You can like a track or skip it, making Prizm learn more about your tastes over time. And if you’re sitting across the room, there will be an optional mobile app to control Prizm.

Now, Prizm has some limitations as well. For example, you can’t use Prizm to simply stream music to your stereo using AirPlay, Spotify Connect or Chromecast. For now, it’s all about the hands-off listening experience. Gochgarian told me that the team was considering adding AirPlay and Spotify Connect support.

But there is one feature that I particularly like. Prizm will also listen to its environment to know if there are many people ready to party, or if it’s a quiet dinner with a few friends. This way, it can play some music that will suit everyone’s mood.

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Beats Music will reportedly come part and parcel with iOS

iTunes is a dinosaur, but Beats may be just what it needs

The Beats Music streaming service will reportedly join the likes of Newsstand, Maps and Stocks as a default iOS app next year.

Apple acquired Beats in May, and although they've yet to do anything meaningful with the brand just yet that will soon change, reports the Financial Times.

Beats Music will be bundled with an upcoming iOS update as early as March, the site says.

Apple hasn't made any official statements on its plans for Beats Music, but iTunes sales slowed this year and it's clear that the iPhone maker is plotting something.

Word in October was Apple will merge Beats Music with iTunes, which already offers limited streaming music with iTunes Radio, and the FT agrees that that's likely.

In addition Apple has reportedly been courting record labels in an effort to slash the streaming music subscription price in half to just $5 (about £3.20, AU$5.80) a month.

Via 9to5Mac

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Apple and U2 are working on a secret new music format

U2 and Apple are going to be pals, with or without you

Whether or not your were happy about Bono forcing his way into your iTunes library last week, the relationship between U2 and Tim Cook is only set to get deeper.

As an article in Time reveals, the pair have set out to work on a new digital music format that they believe will lure us all into buying singles and albums once again.

The idea, according to Bono himself, is to not only help the big stadium-level artists but also the smaller ones who struggle to make money from the industry.

TechRadar recently learned from a source that Apple may be looking to introduce hi-res studio master downloads on iTunes in the near future. There's a chance that this could be the secret project Bono is referring to, but it could also be something more drastic.

With Beats now owned by Apple, it's also possible we could see some sort of tie-in there too. But pulling people away from streaming services such as Spotify will be no easy task.

"Songwriters aren't touring people," said Bono on artists who currently struggle to make money. "Cole Porter wouldn't have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn't coming to a stadium near you."

Bono isn't the only one to lash out at the current state of the industry - Thom Yorke has been a vocal critic of the Spotify model too.

"Make no mistake, new artists you discover on Spotify will not get paid," he said last year. "Meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it."

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Apple, U2 secretly work on new way to buy music

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Bono Apple/Screengrab by Oscar Gutiérrez/CNET

Apple's recent partnership with band U2 might not have won everyone over, but the parties are reportedly hoping that their next move will.

In a wide-ranging interview with U2, the band confirmed to Time Magazine that it's working on a secret project with Apple to develop a new digital music format that would get people to buy more music -- including entire albums -- and in the process, boost revenue for struggling artists.

"Bono tells Time he hopes that a new digital music format in the works will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music--whole albums as well as individual tracks," the magazine wrote in a post on its site on Thursday.

The impact of digital music on the industry has been lamented by artists for years. Piracy continues to be a major concern, and there's pressure from digital stores, like iTunes, where the main form of purchase is to buy a single track for no more than $1.29. After digital stores and the record labels take their cut, artists are left with pennies, making it difficult for them to make a living. Where significant cash is still generated in the music industry is at concerts, with people paying to see artists live and buying merchandise.

Speaking to Time, Bono, U2's lead singer, said the new digital music format will help artists who don't have a large enough audience to fill stadiums for live tours. "Songwriters aren't touring people," Bono said.

Bono revealing that he's working with Apple on a new digital music format might not sit well with the Cupertino, Calif.-based company. Apple is notoriously secretive about future plans and expects all third-parties involved in projects to uphold the same level of secrecy.

Whatever complaints Apple might have, they will likely pale in comparison to complaints over the "gift" Apple and U2 offered to iTunes users last week at the unveiling of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. At the end of the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook brought out the band announced that all iTunes users would receive a free copy of U2's latest album, "Songs of Innocence." While U2 fans celebrated the free album, many people took to the Web complaining that Apple was forcing music on them -- and complaints quickly turned to tirades on social networks.

Responding to the kerfuffle, Apple released a support guide earlier this week that helps users delete the album from their iTunes collection.

It's not clear from the Time article when the new music format might be announced or how it would excite people enough to change their music buying habits.

CNET has contacted Apple for comment on the report and we will update this story when we have more information.

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Next for Android Wear: customized watch faces, GPS and offline music playback

Options! Well, more of them

As promised Google is supporting its burgeoning Android Wear smartwatch platform with its first update rolling out in the coming months.

The everything giant announced the first update will bring offline GPS support and offline music playback to wearables running its smartwatch OS.

Smartwatches with built-in GPS sensors such as Sony's SmartWatch 3 will track your distance and speed when you go on a run. There's no official word whether GPS support includes turn-by-turn direction or whether a map that tracks your position will be displayed, but it seems like one of the obvious uses for a wrist-worn device.

The first update will also bring offline music playback, letting users wireless stream songs stored on their smartwatch to a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Google imagines both these new features will be useful for those who want to leave their smartphone during a run or bike ride. After all, no one likes having a mobile device jumping around their pocket during a workout.

Once users come back home the watch will re-sync, transferring all the updated stats to your handset.

The second update Google has lined up will bring downloadable watch faces. These new designs won't just include different analog and digital clock face; users will also be able to customize their watch's home screen with widgets like their calendar and fitness data.

Soon enough users will also be able to download new developer-created watch faces from the Google Play store.

Lastly Google promises it's working with manufacturers to create even more watch options on top of what it helped introduce at IFA 2014. Supposedly these new wearables will feature different shapes, styles and sensors.

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Samsung's Milk Music spills over to Web TV, wearables

NEW YORK -- Samsung Electronics is getting serious about its Milk streaming music service.

Samsung is pushing its Milk music service hard. Sarah Tew/CNET

The company unveiled an expansion of the service, which started on its Galaxy line of smartphones and will now be expanded to Web TV and wearables.

"It's effectively a big-screen jukebox for the 21st century home," said John Pleasants, executive vice president of Samsung Media Solutions Center of America, in an event held at its new offices here.

The Milk Music service will come preloaded with the Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge, he said.

Pleasants said that each version of Milk was designed to specifically fit each screen. In addition to smartphones, Samsung has a lineup of Web-enabled televisions and smartwatches like the Gear S.

Milk competes with a myriad of streaming music services such as Spotify and Pandora, which work across multiple products and platforms.

Samsung also touted the "Artist Den" component of Milk, which provides listeners with access to artists and provide listeners with exclusive shows.

To promote Milk's curation abilities, Samsung trotted out Maroon 5's Adam Levine and James Valentine to as "the anchor curators."

"We're going to curate the heck out of that thing," Levine said. He also joked that he would be taking part in a "ceremonial iPhone burning" after the event, eliciting a handful of cheers.

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T-Mobile adds 6 services to Music Freedom, just not users' fave

CEO John Legere's T-Mobile expands its program letting customers listen to streaming music without data-usage worries. James Martin/CNET

T-Mobile customers have spoken, and the company is listening. Eventually.

Six more services arrive on the carrier's Music Freedom concept -- which doesn't count streaming music data against customers' cellular data limits -- but not customer favorite Google Play Music, yet.

The carrier unveiled Music Freedom in June, as part of its wider campaign to win new customers by shaking up wireless industry standards, such as data limits that charge fees and contracts in exchange for subsidized smartphones. Though other carriers have linked streaming services to their subscriptions before, T-Mobile, the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier, hoped its unique take -- taking the data element out of the mobile music-listening equation -- would set it apart.

Wednesday , the company said customers have streamed nearly 7,000 terabytes of music and 5 million more songs per day than before the launch of the program.

In June, the carrier asked subscribers to vote for the No. 1 service to add to the program, and 750,000 votes later, Google Play Music was the most requested, T-Mobile said. However, the company won't include the service in the latest wave of additions, saying it is on track to add the service to Music Freedom later this year.

The services added immediately are Google's Songza, Rdio, AccuRadio, Black Planet, Grooveshark, and Paradise. Music Freedom already included Pandora -- the Internet's biggest radio service by number of listeners -- as well as Spotify, Clear Channel's iHeartRadio, iTunesRadio, Rhapsody, Samsung Milk, and Slacker.

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Amazon Music With Prime Music (for Android)

$99 per year Amazon Prime subscription required for Amazon Prime Music. Individual song pricing starts at 69 cents.By Jeffrey L. Wilson

Amazon Music—an updated and rebranded version of the Amazon MP3 app—has a new feature that may entice Amazon Prime subscribers: Amazon Prime Music support. That's right, the mobile music store now taps Amazon's newly released music streaming service to bring millions of songs to your Android tablet or smartphone (if the device is running Android 4.0 or later). If you already subscribe to the $99 Amazon Prime, you'll likely find the ad-free Amazon Music With Prime Music a solid app, but it lacks several features—and artists—found in Slacker Radio, our Editors' Choice among Android music streaming services.

Getting Started
Amazon's app is a store that lets you purchase individual songs and albums, but it becomes a music streaming app with a focus on playlist building (not creating radio stations) if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber. You can hunt for tracks by selecting one of more than 20 music genres and then cycling between the Songs, Albums, and Playlists categories. A swipe-out menu lets you quickly check out recommendations (which are located in a far more convenient place than in the browser-based Amazon Prime Music), new releases, playlists, settings, and the Amazon Music Store. You can also search for your favorite artist or song by keying names into the search box.

Unfortunately, you cannot search for artists, songs, or bands within the Prime Playlist section. If you want to see which artists are included in a playlist, you must open the playlist. I would have liked a search option that let me see where Rage Against the Machine songs live in the various playlists.

Catalog Woes
Amazon Music With Prime Music has a big flaw that's tied to the Amazon Prime Music service and not the app itself: holes in the catalog. You're not, for example, going to find Led Zeppelin (you can, however, find the group in Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify streams), and nearly all of Michael Jackson's solo output is missing in action.

Another woe: Amazon couldn't hammer out a deal with Universal Music Group, so you can't stream that record label's stable of artists, which includes the likes of Nicki Minaj and Metallica. That said, you can stream music from popular and not-so-popular artists such as Daft Punk, Foo Fighters, Pitbull, and Amy Stroup.

Playlists and Purchases
Like Songza, Amazon Prime Music is stocked with hundreds of themed playlists. I found interesting collections such as 50 Great '90s Songs and Hot, Sweaty Summer Nights. Each playlist displays a list of the tracks and the list's total runtime. When you find a track or playlist you like, you can quickly add the music to your music library by tapping the "Add" icon.

Naturally, Amazon gives you the option to purchase songs—it's one of the world's largest retailers, after all. The app's Music Store contains many tracks priced between 69 cents and $1.29. You may ask yourself why you'd want to purchase music when lots of "free" music comes with your Amazon Prime subscription. It's simple: Buying digital music files fill Prime Music's catalog holes. For example, you can purchase the Zeppelin songs that aren't available for streaming and listen to them from within Amazon Music with Prime Music.

Unlike the browser-based Amazon Prime Music, the app lets you purchase just one song or album at a time. If you want to do mass purchases, you'll need to visit Amazon on the desktop side—a slight inconvenience. Check out our Amazon  Prime Music review for storage information and how the service compares to iTunes Match.

Decent Audio, Performance Issues
The music streamed to my ears via an Astro Gaming headset was crisp and satisfying. It wasn't audiophile good, but most people won't have an issue with the audio. If you're the type who likes to read song lyrics, you'll have to go elsewhere, because there are none to be found here.

I have a larger gripe, however: Amazon Music With Prime Music locked up my Samsung Galaxy Note II phone on multiple occassions. Each time my phone froze, it was after I had tapped the play button to initiate a stream. On the upside, you can cache music for offline playback as you can with a $9.99 per month Slacker Radio Premium subscription.

It's Amazon Prime on the Go
Amazon Music with Prime Music won't coax away listeners from PCMag Editors' Choice Slacker Radio, who are accustomed to live radio, lyrics, weather updates, and excellent DJ-curated stations, but if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber who just wants to listen to a few tunes on your Android smartphone or tablet without incurring additional costs—or exploring other apps—you may want to download the app.

View the original article here

Amazon Music With Prime Music (for Android)

$99 per year Amazon Prime subscription required for Amazon Prime Music. Individual song pricing starts at 69 cents.By Jeffrey L. Wilson

Amazon Music—an updated and rebranded version of the Amazon MP3 app—has a new feature that may entice Amazon Prime subscribers: Amazon Prime Music support. That's right, the mobile music store now taps Amazon's newly released music streaming service to bring millions of songs to your Android tablet or smartphone (if the device is running Android 4.0 or later). If you already subscribe to the $99 Amazon Prime, you'll likely find the ad-free Amazon Music With Prime Music a solid app, but it lacks several features—and artists—found in Slacker Radio, our Editors' Choice among Android music streaming services.

Getting Started
Amazon's app is a store that lets you purchase individual songs and albums, but it becomes a music streaming app with a focus on playlist building (not creating radio stations) if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber. You can hunt for tracks by selecting one of more than 20 music genres and then cycling between the Songs, Albums, and Playlists categories. A swipe-out menu lets you quickly check out recommendations (which are located in a far more convenient place than in the browser-based Amazon Prime Music), new releases, playlists, settings, and the Amazon Music Store. You can also search for your favorite artist or song by keying names into the search box.

Unfortunately, you cannot search for artists, songs, or bands within the Prime Playlist section. If you want to see which artists are included in a playlist, you must open the playlist. I would have liked a search option that let me see where Rage Against the Machine songs live in the various playlists.

Catalog Woes
Amazon Music With Prime Music has a big flaw that's tied to the Amazon Prime Music service and not the app itself: holes in the catalog. You're not, for example, going to find Led Zeppelin (you can, however, find the group in Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify streams), and nearly all of Michael Jackson's solo output is missing in action.

Another woe: Amazon couldn't hammer out a deal with Universal Music Group, so you can't stream that record label's stable of artists, which includes the likes of Nicki Minaj and Metallica. That said, you can stream music from popular and not-so-popular artists such as Daft Punk, Foo Fighters, Pitbull, and Amy Stroup.

Playlists and Purchases
Like Songza, Amazon Prime Music is stocked with hundreds of themed playlists. I found interesting collections such as 50 Great '90s Songs and Hot, Sweaty Summer Nights. Each playlist displays a list of the tracks and the list's total runtime. When you find a track or playlist you like, you can quickly add the music to your music library by tapping the "Add" icon.

Naturally, Amazon gives you the option to purchase songs—it's one of the world's largest retailers, after all. The app's Music Store contains many tracks priced between 69 cents and $1.29. You may ask yourself why you'd want to purchase music when lots of "free" music comes with your Amazon Prime subscription. It's simple: Buying digital music files fill Prime Music's catalog holes. For example, you can purchase the Zeppelin songs that aren't available for streaming and listen to them from within Amazon Music with Prime Music.

Unlike the browser-based Amazon Prime Music, the app lets you purchase just one song or album at a time. If you want to do mass purchases, you'll need to visit Amazon on the desktop side—a slight inconvenience. Check out our Amazon  Prime Music review for storage information and how the service compares to iTunes Match.

Decent Audio, Performance Issues
The music streamed to my ears via an Astro Gaming headset was crisp and satisfying. It wasn't audiophile good, but most people won't have an issue with the audio. If you're the type who likes to read song lyrics, you'll have to go elsewhere, because there are none to be found here.

I have a larger gripe, however: Amazon Music With Prime Music locked up my Samsung Galaxy Note II phone on multiple occassions. Each time my phone froze, it was after I had tapped the play button to initiate a stream. On the upside, you can cache music for offline playback as you can with a $9.99 per month Slacker Radio Premium subscription.

It's Amazon Prime on the Go
Amazon Music with Prime Music won't coax away listeners from PCMag Editors' Choice Slacker Radio, who are accustomed to live radio, lyrics, weather updates, and excellent DJ-curated stations, but if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber who just wants to listen to a few tunes on your Android smartphone or tablet without incurring additional costs—or exploring other apps—you may want to download the app.

View the original article here

Amazon Prime Music

Included with a $99 Amazon Prime subscription.By Jeffrey L. Wilson

When Amazon raised the price of its marvelous Amazon Prime service from $79 to $99 per year, many subscribers wondered what the company would give them to justify the boost. Amazon quickly responded. First, select HBO content became available for streaming in the Instant Video section. Next, Amazon Prime Music—the subject of this review—arrived, giving subscribers fast access to millions of tracks and hundreds of curated playlists. If you already subscribe to Amazon Prime, you'll likely find Prime Music a solid addition, but it lacks several features—and artists—found in Slacker Radio, our Editors' Choice among music streaming services.

A Lot of Genres, Some Missing Artists
The Amazon Prime Music home screen is divided into two main sections: a primary content section that takes up most of the screen real estate, and one column just left of it. The former houses popular playlists and songs, while the latter hosts more than 20 genre categories. You can, of course, search for content by band or song name.

Searching for Led Zeppelin tracks quickly revealed one of Amazon Prime Music's bigger flaws: holes in the catalog. The service offers tons of Zeppelin tribute band content, but no actual music by the official group (Slacker and Spotify, on the other hand, both have access to the Zeppelin catalog). Likewise, I found just one Michael Jackson song—"Will You Be There" from the Free Willy soundtrack. The service also lacks content from Universal Music Group. That said, Amazon Prime Music isn't a total wasteland. You can stream music from popular and not-so-popular artists such as Bruno Mars, The Dirtbombs, Madonna, and Rage Against the Machine.

Playlists, Purchases, and Recommendations
Like Songza, Amazon Prime Music is stocked with hundreds of themed playlists that were assembled by the rather pretentiously named collective known as Amazon's Music Experts. I found interesting collections such as Foo Fighters Top Songs and the oddly named 50 Great Epic Classic Rock Songs. Each playlist displays a track listing, the total runtime, and curator. When you find a track or playlist that you like, you can quickly add the music to Your Music Library (a section where your favorite tracks live) by clicking Add to Library.

Naturally, Amazon gives you the option to purchase these songs, too. You can buy them individually (many are priced between 69 cents and $1.29) or toss a few into the MP3 Cart for a mass purchase.

Unfortunately, if you're looking for Slacker-like recommendations to expand your music horizons, you must look carefully. Recommendations are stashed in the Recently Viewed Items and Featured Recommendations section—a section that's located below the comment section. It's very inconveniently placed and easily overlooked. Even worse, it can be confusing to discern at a glance which items are actual recommendations as opposed to previously eyeballed items. Fortunately, the recommendations on the Your Music Library page are separate from items that you previously viewed, so there's no confusion. I wish Amazon had opted for a more unified user interface.

Importing and Audio
Like Spotify, Amazon Prime Music lets you import music into Your Music Library. To do so, you must install Adobe Flash, download the import app, and manually upload  music files. You can also opt to let the Music Importer scan your iTunes and Windows Media Player folders for music and automatically upload the songs.

All your new and previously purchased Amazon music files are stored free of charge, as are the first 250 uploaded tracks not bought from Amazon. If you need to import more non Amazon music, you can import 250,000 tracks for $24.99 per year. The imported music and bookmarked Amazon Prime Music tracks exist as a single playlist within Your Music Library.

Amazon Prime Music takes many cues from Apple's iTunes Match, a subscription service ($24.99 per year) that removes ads from iTunes Radio and fills your iCloud account with tunes that match the music files on your computer. iTunes Match also lets you store 250,000 non-iTunes purchased tracks.

The music streamed to my ears via an Astro Gaming headset was crisp and satisfying. It wasn't audiophile good, but most people won't have an issue with the audio. Still, I favored iTunes Match's audio over Amazon Prime Music's as it was a bit crisper. Apple streams its iTunes Match tracks at a solid 256 Kbps; I've reached out to Amazon for its Prime Music streaming bitrate and will update this review with a response when it's received. Note: Billboard states that Amazon's streaming music will be delivered at a bitrate ranging from between 48 Kbps to 256Kbps, depending on the Internet connection speed.

Not Amazing, but a Good Addition to Prime
By itself, Amazon Prime Music isn't a selling point for a Prime subscription, but it's yet another feature that the service affords. If you want a feature-packed streaming service that offers live radio, lyrics, weather updates, and excellent DJ-curated stations, Slacker Radio is your go-to pick. But if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber who just wants to listen to a few tunes without incurring additional costs—or exploring other apps—Amazon Prime Music is a streaming music service to check out.

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