<story><title>Amazon enables free calls and messages on all Echo devices with Alexa Calling</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-and-messages-on-all-echo-devices-with-alexa-calling/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dtien</author><text>Apple (and Google) really dropped the ball on the connected Home &amp;#x27;smartbox&amp;#x27; that Amazon popularized with Alexa.&lt;p&gt;We received one as a gift this past Christmas, and I&amp;#x27;m now a full believer in this tech after being a very big skeptic during the first couple years of Alexa&amp;#x27;s existence.  Add to the fact, that we primarily use it as a smart connected radio, and the benefits are still beyond clear to me.&lt;p&gt;Essentially, you&amp;#x27;ve now opened up the possibility of exposing a lot of the latest tech to a new demographic of people that probably were &amp;#x27;too old&amp;#x27; to &amp;#x27;get it&amp;#x27;, or not tech savvy enough to use it.  The combination of a voice interface (not perfect, but improving) with access to all the latest web services spanning music, telephony, email, todo lists, home automation, etc is huge.  I can now actually envision my parents, or even grandparents using services like Spotify, Podcasts, Connected Calendars, VOIP, and any number of things that the tech savvy take for granted through their phones or other devices.&lt;p&gt;Circling back to my first statement about Apple; the quintessential consumer oriented tech company.  The company that&amp;#x27;s supposed to make all things nasty and complicated into things that are simple and accessible.  How did Apple who already had Apple TV (home box), Siri (voice interface), Itunes (music and app ecosystem), Icloud( ugh.. but still integrated personal mgmt) and FaceTime (VOIP) not come up with this sooner.  Or at least, once they saw Alexa gaining popularity not just bundle up their services and release it.  Apple typically is late to the party with a more refined product, but Amazon is executing at an impressive rate these days and it&amp;#x27;s getting harder to see how Apple can close the gap.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dkrich</author><text>Apple spends years meticulously developing and then releasing the most successful (and profitable) consumer computing platform of all time. Nearly every man, woman and child in the US has an Apple device no more than five feet from them at all time that&amp;#x27;s completely capable of controlling every home device connected to the internet.&lt;p&gt;Amazon spends years and billions of dollars trying to compete in the hardware space with Apple, unsuccessfully releasing a phone and several very average tablet devices, none of which really gain much traction.&lt;p&gt;Then they release a device that can respond only to voice &amp;quot;pretty well&amp;quot; which can now handle VOIP calls only with other Amazon devices and we are ceding this battle to Amazon?&lt;p&gt;I think Amazon has to greatly improve the user experience before the Echo moves past a cool novelty item for me. I own one, and I can honestly say I feel no desire to purchase any more.&lt;p&gt;My Nest cam on the other hand I use all day to monitor my dog (using my iPhone) and often consider switching to Google Home and buying more Nest products because I feel invested in that ecosystem.&lt;p&gt;To me, the tablet&amp;#x2F;smart phone experience is just more efficient and easier than dealing with voice. That&amp;#x27;s just my own experience though, and time may prove me very wrong.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon enables free calls and messages on all Echo devices with Alexa Calling</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-and-messages-on-all-echo-devices-with-alexa-calling/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dtien</author><text>Apple (and Google) really dropped the ball on the connected Home &amp;#x27;smartbox&amp;#x27; that Amazon popularized with Alexa.&lt;p&gt;We received one as a gift this past Christmas, and I&amp;#x27;m now a full believer in this tech after being a very big skeptic during the first couple years of Alexa&amp;#x27;s existence.  Add to the fact, that we primarily use it as a smart connected radio, and the benefits are still beyond clear to me.&lt;p&gt;Essentially, you&amp;#x27;ve now opened up the possibility of exposing a lot of the latest tech to a new demographic of people that probably were &amp;#x27;too old&amp;#x27; to &amp;#x27;get it&amp;#x27;, or not tech savvy enough to use it.  The combination of a voice interface (not perfect, but improving) with access to all the latest web services spanning music, telephony, email, todo lists, home automation, etc is huge.  I can now actually envision my parents, or even grandparents using services like Spotify, Podcasts, Connected Calendars, VOIP, and any number of things that the tech savvy take for granted through their phones or other devices.&lt;p&gt;Circling back to my first statement about Apple; the quintessential consumer oriented tech company.  The company that&amp;#x27;s supposed to make all things nasty and complicated into things that are simple and accessible.  How did Apple who already had Apple TV (home box), Siri (voice interface), Itunes (music and app ecosystem), Icloud( ugh.. but still integrated personal mgmt) and FaceTime (VOIP) not come up with this sooner.  Or at least, once they saw Alexa gaining popularity not just bundle up their services and release it.  Apple typically is late to the party with a more refined product, but Amazon is executing at an impressive rate these days and it&amp;#x27;s getting harder to see how Apple can close the gap.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>petra</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t have alexa, just &amp;quot;OK, Google&amp;quot;, and the interaction model is very similar to the commandline - which isn&amp;#x27;t too positive when it comes to regular people.&lt;p&gt;And it fits with :&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; we primarily use it as a smart connected radio,&lt;p&gt;Does anybody see a solution to that problem ?</text></comment>