Detailed on the official Roku blog as well as a press release about the Samsung launch, the Amazon Cloud Player development team has made the application available on Roku hardware as well as Samsung smart televisions manufactured during 2011 and 2012. The Amazon Cloud Player application allows users to store up to 250 songs for free and access the music on laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices. In addition, Amazon will increase a user’s song limit to 250,000 on the $24.99-per-year premium plan. Amazon also offers a feature similar to iTunes Match that automatically recognizes a music file and upgrades the sound quality using a 256 Kbps file from the Amazon music catalog. It’s an ideal feature for anyone with plenty of MP3 files encoded at a low bitrate.
On Roku devices, users can find the Amazon Cloud Player application within the Roku Channel Store by searching under the featured or music categories. After installing the application, users can take advantage of a shuffle mode that can be segmented by songs specific to an album, an artist, a genre or a playlist.
Amazon has included a search function to locate a specific song or artist within a large collection of music. In addition, users can listen to one song while searching through the application for another selection. Regarding hardware restrictions, the application is available for Roku 2, Roku LT, Roku HD (model 2500) and the Roku Streaming Stick. It also requires a firmware update to Roku software version 4.9.
For installation on Samsung Smart televisions, the user must register their Amazon account on the Samsung television first. The application can be found within the Lifestyle section of Samsung Apps on the Smart Hub. After installation, the Samsung user must enter a five-character code generated by the application on Amazon’s site. After the television is registered and connected to the user’s Amazon account, they can start listening to music through the Amazon Cloud Player application.
