Amazon music catalog open to Apple users

SAN FRANCISCO - Agence France-Presse

Amazon has said its 22-million song music catalog is now “optimized” for users of Apple devices, making it easier for iPhone owners to circumvent the iTunes store.

The move is part of a new initiative by the Internet retail giant challenging Apple’s dominance of the digital music market.

 “For the first time ever, iPhone and iPod touch users can discover and buy digital music from Amazon’s 22-million song catalog using the Safari browser,” Amazon said in a statement.

“Music purchases are automatically saved to customers’ Cloud Player libraries and can be downloaded or played instantly from any iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Kindle Fire, Android phone or tablet, Roku, Sonos home entertainment system, or any Web browser, giving customers the freedom to enjoy more music, from more devices than any other major cloud music service.” The move comes a week after Amazon launched a service that gives compact disc buyers instant copies of music in the Internet “cloud.”