I’ve had the Amazon Echo sitting on my desk for the last couple of months and it’s an odd device – and I actually think it’s pretty great.
It’s a voice-controlled, speaker-cum-shopping tube that can go in your kitchen, living room or bedroom. You use it for simple queries like, “How’s the weather?” or “How is my commute? or “What is Barack Obama’s middle name?”
Listen to me interact with this device on this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner.
The Amazon Echo is just now available to the public, costing $179 or $99 for Prime subscribers. (Update: The price for Prime subscribers is now $179.)
Of all the things you can command it to do, I found it to be the best and easiest way to play music from a bunch of different services like Amazon Prime, TuneIn Radio or Pandora and, of course, it’s a shopping device to order and reorder things you get from Amazon.
It can even control smart devices in your home. It has its limits but for the things it does, it is completely reliable and gets it right every single time.
But it got me thinking what if Apple did this with Siri and Home Kit and you had a device that could be integrated into a whole bunch of services you already use like Apple Music, your calendar, email and text. It is a really reliable and non-frustrating voice-activated interface.
If Apple brought this to Siri and the home, it would be completely Amazing.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
8 responses to “Kahney’s Korner: Apple could learn from the Amazon Echo”
Dude, really?? You know what it got me thinking? How has Apple STILL not done this with Siri, or Google with Now? Pathetic. I bet this will be a big wakeup call, especially for google who is trying to convince people to buy nest products.
This device is just useless. Had it at $99 with Prime invitation, returned it. Why? No battery operated option. Hype and die soon.
Welcome to the next iteration of the Apple TV.
The Watch you are wearing already has more features.
Yeah. I already have a device that can do all that. It’s called my phone.
Set up an old iphone 4s to always be on and you have this. “Hey Siri”
This is so much better than using your watch or an old iPhone. The voice recognition is amazing and it can hear extremely well. The speakers are pretty darn good. I use mine all of the time. The author is right. If Apple (or Google) did something like this and tied it to their services it would be completely awesome. I control several of my Hue lights with it. Being able to say “Alexa…play me some 80’s music” is really just amazing. Plus the other features such as reminders, timers, to-dos, shopping list make this device one of the coolest and useful devices I have ever had. And now that Amazon has released a developers kit this thing is only going to get better and better.
I have an echo and I love it. I use it daily. I ask it the weather and what is on my iPhones calendar for the day while feeding the cats in the morning. I ask it to play a local radio station overnight while I cook dinner so I don’t have to pair my iPhone with the old under the cabinet blue tooth speaker then touch phone with dirty hands and open I heart radio app and picking station I could get Siri to open the app but couldn’t get her to play the station. So I still had to touch my screen. I also have the echo set up to call my Phone if I misplace it. Only had to use once when it was in the cushions in my sofa but kind of cool. I’m glad I only paid $99 for it. I would consider a second one but don’t really need a second but wouldn’t mind having one for the second floor.
It doesn’t sound near as good as my Bose sound link 2 but the sound is good and it is just my kitchen radio plus a lot more.