Apple Podcasts are now available on Amazon Alexa devices in the UK and Ireland. The move follows on from the news that Amazon Music is adding podcasts to its own service following Spotify's lead. Podcasts certainly seems to be an increasing battleground between services and it'll be interesting to see how this affects the relationship between Apple Podcasts and Apple Music going forward. 

Apple Music came to Echo devices early last year, so it's surprising it's taken this long for Apple's Podcasts app to appear on Echo smart speakers - as well as third-party speakers that use Alexa and Amazon's own Fire TV system.

The process is very similar to setting up Apple Music - but instead of changing your default music service in the Alexa app you need to change your podcast provider instead. 

Apple Podcasts is now available via Amazon Alexa on Echo, Fire TV and more photo 1
Amazon

In the Alexa app, go to Settings, select Music & Podcasts and then link up Apple Podcasts in there with your Apple ID. Tap Link new service to start. You can use standard Alexa utterances with it, such as: 'Alexa, play Football Weekly on Apple Podcasts' and 'Alexa, fast forward 30 seconds'. 

You can read more about the Apple Podcasts skill here