Video: The new Amazon Echo Dot is the smartest no-brainer ever
Last week, I wrote that the Alexa-powered Amazon Echo Show feels like the desktop PC of the future; indeed, the company wants it to become a seamless brain for the digital home. The Alexa Show can now use a mix of speech and touch to hail services such as Uber, check statuses of various tasks, deliver news, weather, and other info, play music and video, integrate with smart home devices, even play some casual games. In short, it can also do much of what smartphones can do.
That brings us back to whether Alexa could conceivably drive a new beginning for Amazon in the smartphone space -- one that takes an agent-first approach as opposed to the grafted-on capabilities of Siri and Google Assistant or the ambitious attempt by Bixby to provide full control of the phone and apps.
A phone driven by Alexa, as it now exists, would offer several advantages over an apps-driven experience, not the least of which is that it would likely be a superior option for the visually impaired; it needn't even have a display. However, the Echo Show has demonstrated that Amazon can design an interface in which the display complements the voice-driven nature of Alexa. That display can serve many of the functions it does today such as viewing photos, maps, and videos.
But Amazon would have to plug a few technical and business holes to make the "Alexaphone" a truly viable option.
Finally, there's the huge issue of Amazon gaining consumer acceptance for a smartphone that operated more like the Echo Show, that is, something that is based on getting things done rather than navigating grids of apps and more hamburger menus than in all of the McDonald's. There's a big difference between having success with a little cylindrical Bluetooth speaker and displacing a tool that consumers rely on throughout their day. Apple faced such an education challenge with the iPhone, but even that adapted familiar elements of the desktop graphical user interface such as icons and scrolling.
It's hard to imagine that Amazon has said goodbye to the smartphone market for good. But even if it is too late to reinvent the smartphone, Alexa represents a more promising approach for a host of next-generation connected devices with constrained input and interfaces, including smartwatches, TV, and augmented reality,
The Echo Show looks like the desktop PC of the future
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-echo-show-looks-like-the-desktop-pc-of-the-future/It may not be able to create simple office documents today, but Echo Show's graceful overlay of visuals and touch on a fast-growing developer ecosystem is making it a more consumer-friendly device than the PC has ever been.
Samsung's Bixby voice agent brings the fight to Alexa and Siri
https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsungs-bixby-voice-agent-brings-the-fight-to-alexa-and-siri/Samsung's late entrant to the voice agent game has a few tricks up its sleeve for determining what you want and integrating into the smartphone experience.
Next Apple Watch faces the long road to mass smartwatch appeal
https://www.zdnet.com/article/next-apple-watch-faces-the-long-road-to-mass-smartwatch-appeal/Smartwatches have been great companion devices for smartphone giants like Apple and Samsung, and they've been a check-off item in the portfolio of luxury and fashion brands. But their growth will be limited as long as they live in the shadow of phones.