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Google Blames Bug for Apple Music Appearing on Home Speakers

Apple Music can be controlled by the Google Assistant on smartphones, but not through Google Home devices.

Google Blames Bug for Apple Music Appearing on Home Speakers
An attendee gestures toward the new Google Inc. Home device during a product launch event in San Francisco, California, U.S. (Photographer: Michael Short/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Google’s iPhone app that allows users to set up and control the company’s Home speakers indicated early Tuesday that Apple Music would soon be coming to the devices -- suggesting that Apple Inc. was continuing to push its services beyond its hardware in an effort to generate more revenue.

But it was just a software bug, a spokesman for the Alphabet Inc. company said.

“We have nothing to announce regarding updates to Google Home,” the spokesman said.

Apple Music can be controlled by the Google Assistant on smartphones, but not through Google Home devices. The voice-activated assistant and the Google Home app share some settings for music services, and due to a glitch, the company accidentally opened up Apple Music controls to the home speaker app.

While the companies don’t appear to have imminent plans on an Apple Music partnership for Google Home devices, Apple has been expanding its services to other platforms as growth wanes for its signature iPhone. The company launched Apple Music on Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo speakers last year and said it would debut an iTunes Movies and TV Shows app on televisions from Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., and others this year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Gerrit De Vynck in New York at gdevynck@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Dan Reichl

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