The Amazon Echo and the Echo Plus. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Apple is making its Apple Music service available on Amazon Echo devices in a surprising new partnership between two rivals in the voice arena.

The Apple Music integration will arrive on the Echo in mid-December, Amazon announced today in a blog post. That means Apple Music subscribers will be able to stream music through Echo devices by enabling the Apple Music skill in the Alexa app and linking an account.

The deal is notable in part because Apple last year launched its own voice assistant device, the $349 Apple HomePod. In addition, Amazon has its own music streaming service, Amazon Music Unlimited.

The partnership gives 50 million Apple Music subscribers who pay $9.99 per month — Spotify announced 83 million in July — another place to stream music, and gives Amazon Echo a new feature not available with its rival Google Home. Echo devices also integrate with Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

The Echo is Amazon’s most popular device, according to a report from June. Sales of Apple’s HomePod were less than initially forecasted, Bloomberg reported in April.

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