Should Pandora, Apple And Spotify Be Worried About Amazon's New Radio App?

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN updated its Prime Music iOS app this week, and the updated app now includes Amazon's version of Pandora Media Inc P's radio app and Apple Inc. AAPL iTunes Radio.

Amazon's Prime Music launched artist and genre-based stations online a few months ago, and now iPhone users can easily enjoy those new stations with the updated app.

New Features

Prime Music allows users an unlimited number of song skips. Since app users are all Prime members (at a cost of $99 per year), they are paying for the unlimited skips feature via their Prime membership.

Much like Pandora's stations, Prime Music listeners are allowed to give songs thumbs up or thumbs down, and the station will automatically take song preference into account.

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There is also a feature that allows users to instantly add any song they hear on Prime Music to their Prime library. Finally, users can choose to have synchronized song lyrics displayed as a song plays. 

Ease Of Use

Amazon also put some effort into improving the look and functionality of the app. The new interface allows users to easily choose between their own library of purchased and uploaded songs and the albums that come included with Prime membership.

Should Pandora, Apple And Spotify Be Worried?

As great as the new Prime Music app may sound, it still has one glaring Achilles heel: the music catalog. Prime Music's catalog consists of over a million songs, but that is only about 5 percent of the catalog size of Spotify's or Apple's Beats catalogs.

Disclosure: The author holds a short position in Amazon.