[t0mbstone]

Apple and Google are both shooting themselves in the foot by insisting on keeping their voice products within walled gardens.

Amazon is doing an amazing job of allowing the community to extend the voice functionality of their Amazon Echo. You can build an app that does just about anything you want and release it on their Amazon Echo store. There are already hundreds on there, and it's only a matter of time before someone releases a truly conversational A.I. integration for it.

My family uses our Amazon Echoes (all 6 of them, scattered strategically around the house) for hundreds of little things throughout the week. I control all of my lights, my thermostat, my entire home theater (via custom voice activated scripts). I even use it to make my tempurpedic bed vibrate ("Alexa, turn on bed vibration"). I use Echo for timers, and my morning alarm to wake up (which also triggers my bed vibration). I use it to query wikipedia subjects, perform quick math calculations, order new paper towels...

If you gave me a couple of hours, I could even whip up an Alexa integration that would let me open my garage door and remote start my car in the morning ("Alexa, turn on my car's air conditioner")! It would just be an Alexa command that triggered a custom script which would log into the web interface for my car link and would click the remote start button. Easy. I love building this sort of thing.

The possibilities are endless when you have an open, extensible platform. I don't understand why Apple and Google are being so dumb and close-minded, and still don't understand this!