Amazon launched its Cloud Player and Cloud Drive services Tuesday, offering users a way to access their music files from a web browser anywhere. Amazon also released an official Android app for Cloud Player that lets Android fans listen to their tunes on the go. What about iOS users? Well, it would appear at first blush as if owners of the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad are out of luck — the Cloud Player website simply doesn’t want to work with Mobile Safari.
After assessing the situation a bit, it’s clear that this is a limitation not born out of technical necessity (read: This isn’t because of Flash) and is either a simple oversight or an intentional decision to block iOS devices.
Users who attempt to access amazon.com/cloudplayer in iOS are greeted with a me ssage that the browser is not supported and they should “try Internet Explorer.” Ignoring the message will serve users the standard Cloud Player interface, but pressing the play button on any track will lead, well, nowhere.
Reports from Android owners indicate that they can access the website without a problem, so the issue must be with the user agent string that the website is detecting from the web browser. As far as we can tell, it appears as if Amazon either doesn’t support or is blocking Mobile Safari from direct player control.
The Workaround: Mobile Safari Method
First off, we’ll warn you, while this method certainly works, it isn’t the most streamlined solution. The workaround is to click on a song name and then select “Download” from the drop-down menu. This will force Mobile Safari to open the file. If you have apps like GoodReader, Filer, or iUnarchive installed, you may be able to choose t o open the file in those...
