[dkrich]

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's completely capable of controlling every home device connected to the internet.

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.

Then they release a device that can respond only to voice "pretty well" which can now handle VOIP calls only with other Amazon devices and we are ceding this battle to Amazon?

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.

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.

To me, the tablet/smart phone experience is just more efficient and easier than dealing with voice. That's just my own experience though, and time may prove me very wrong.

[dtien]

You're almost speaking to my point, Apple did create one of the best and widely adopted computing platforms out there with the Smart Phone. And yet... even you describe it as a 'computing device'.

Echo/Alexa is the first step to that ubiquitous IoT future, where computing is sort of removed from the terminology and services are just available on demand in the most natural of human interfaces -- voice.

Similar to that first moment of watching a 5 year old ( or 60 year old ) accessing YouTube on an Ipad ( simplified touch interface ) when the first i-devices came out. The voice interface will be just as transformative, if not more so.

The moment for me was when my 2 year old niece screamed, "Alexa, play the gummy bear song"... and it started playing, and she started dancing. That was a game changing moment for me, to realize that this device opens the doors for the young, the old, the impaired, and even the tech averse to access all kinds of cool tech that we take for granted. Hell even for me, "Alexa, play the latest 'how I built this' podcast"

Don't get me wrong, typing and touch is infinitely more efficient and powerful, but voice will be infinitely more accessible. Touch devices, as simple as they are, still require a mental model of which icons provide which services, clicking through and typing out requests and looking at results, versus what my 2 year old niece was able to do with Alexa.

[dkrich]

My point is that the iPhone/iPad/Android-enabled tablet is a ubiquitous IoT control panel.

I disagree that the most natural of human interfaces is voice. It's like saying that listening to an audiobook will always be a better way to consume media than watching a video. Audio only is great for some use cases, but not most. Humans developed the ability to see, touch, hear, and speak for a reason. After all, radios predated television by a long shot. Then when televisions were released, they pretty much cannibalized the sale of the home radio, because it added the ability to see in real time what you were listening to.

Speech is most certainly an important part of communication for humans, but it's just one, and only best for certain things. Simple queries like "what's the weather today?" or "play some music" is better said than typed, I would agree. But for lots of other tasks its just not efficient. I'd rather pull out my phone and search for restaurant recommendations than try and fumble around communicating by voice. When I pull up the Yelp app, I can instantly view a list of many of restaurants and because I'm used to the interface and visual cues, like the number of stars, location, and reviews, I can discern what I think I'd like very quickly. Now imagine a human trying to describe what they saw on that app to me. It'd be impossible to do. It's just very difficult to convey subtleties with voice only.

As an aside, if Apple wanted to get into the IoT business and pose a threat to Amazon, I think if they released some sort of "Always On" listening mode and began giving developers the ability to build apps which responded to it, they'd already be caught up. If I could say "play some music" or "Face Time Dave" and it solved the simple query problem, I don't know that I'd ever use my Echo again (I maybe use it once or twice a week now).

[dtien]

In terms of voice/speech, we maybe talking on different points. I'm considering voice as an input mechanism, but the output mechanism certainly has to be dynamic and use the most sensible mechanism in the given context. Ex:

1. Alexa play song --> output on in-built speaker

2. "Alexa turn on Warriors game", "Alexa play latest episode of Game of Thrones" --> output onto nearest TV

3. Alexa get direction to San Francisco --> sends to my phone screen

4. Alexa show me top Sushi restaurants nearby --> send to nearest display ( TV or phone )

... and so on.

So yes, I definitely agree with you, voice as an output quickly becomes untenable. But again, that's what I mean by ubiquitous, you're no longer tied to a device for input/output. Your environment/context will define what your input/output mechanisms are. Outputs can be any displays, speakers, TVs, thermostats, lights, etc. And in most cases, voice is the simplest, most intuitive input mechanism for simple queries that a majority of our daily interactions with our surroundings will require.

Just as touch devices required UI developers to simplify their interface design to accommodate 'touch access' by removing layers of menus, pages, etc. Voice will also precipitate this type of simplification of the interface to where the core elements are accessible with simple queries, with strong, complex NLP and search behind it.

And again, it's more about accessibility than it is about expressiveness through voice input.

[ghurtado]

> Nearly every man, woman and child in the US has an Apple device no more than five feet from them at all time

How did you come up with this claim? It's certainly not true for myself, my household, most of my relatives and most of my friends and coworkers.

[dkrich]

Well, Apple sells about 200 million iPhones a year, so when you add in iPad sales to that, unless you are outside the US, you should consider yourself in a very select minority.

[ghurtado]

200 million worldwide.

The iPhone currently has around 15% of the smartphone market:

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/27/iphone-15-percent-marke...

Last time I checked, 85% was most definitely not a minority.

[albedoa]

Hold up. Is it your belief that Apple's smartphone market share in 1Q16 is equal to the number of people who have iPhones or Apple products?

[ghurtado]

If you have a different figure, you should share it

[albedoa]

This is your source to defend. 85% of smartphones purchased in 1Q16 were non-Apple. You used this figure to claim that 85% of all people don't own iPhones.

You're most likely right, but I don't know what kind of honest conversation can be had with someone who is so willing to pull one over on the rest of us to force his point. You derived your own figure from an unrelated figure and implied a connection.

If you had answered "Oh haha yup, my bad" that'd be excusable. But it looks like you're running with it and / or throwing the burden on me for some reason.

[dkrich]

You're right, I stand corrected. Nobody uses Apple products. Let's move on.

[ghurtado]

Are those the only two possible scenarios? Either everyone has an Apple device within 5ft of them at all times or nobody uses Apple products?

[albedoa]

You're looking for an honest conversation now? That's bold.