The Amazon voice recognition and processing system is vastly more powerful than what I get with Siri. Don't get me wrong, big Apple fan, but more than half the time I try to use Siri I just give up and type what I want into Safari.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Amazon Reveals $230 Touchscreen 'Echo Show' Launching in June
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Because the only way these devices are useful is if it's always there. If your kid took it to play games or your spouse took it out back to read on you'll quickly get out of the habit of talking to it.
It has to be useless at other things in order to be good at its own thing.
It works very well on mine
Will the Amazon product do that right?
Don't think so...
I actually like the look of it lol, but I still think it's mostly useless. You can do all of this from a smartphone, and probably better too. Tablet on a stand for sure.
Are you referring to a possible early retirement when they become the first trillion dollar valuation? already 800 billion, bra.
I'm sure it works well, but I'd rather get an iPad mini 2 and prop it up on a stand. This is ugly.
I watched the video they released showing people using it and it's neat, I can see why people would want this, I certainly would enjoy having such a product.
But the privacy issues surrounding it always listening are too much for me. I don't like that aspect. It's just to "connected" to the cloud.
But the privacy issues surrounding it always listening are too much for me. I don't like that aspect. It's just to "connected" to the cloud.
Well, everyone on Earth is part of the tinfoil hat club right because it was literally just proven all the 3 letter government clubs are in fact spying on us.
I've got a router that can show how much bandwidth an individual device is using on my network. The Echo only ever uses bandwidth when you ask it a question. The rest of the time it is extremely idle. Now, that doesn't mean that it can't be remotely activated to start sending data up to the cloud, but for the most part it is not doing that all the time.
Because the iPad doesn't have giant speakers, an AI as smart as Alexa, or 8 microphones that will enable you to be heard and understood clearly from anywhere in the house, even when music is playing...
I don't get the whole screen concept at all. 1) if I want to 'call' someone, they have to have the same device (same is kinda true with Facetime, needing the other party to at least have the app) 2) I'm stuck in one place once I make that call unless I want to go 'off screen'. Aside from what is probably a pretty decent speaker, my idevices or Mac already do everything this thing does and more. Am I missing something? I completely see the usefulness of an Echo, but this just has me scratching my head.
For several reasons. Hey Siri can't connect to any of Amazon's Skills which is the main benefit of the system which allows you to connect with all the devices in your home or third party actions. HomeKit has been a bit slow and difficult it seems with partners which is why we don't see a lot of HomeKit integrations versus the plethora of Amazon Echo integrations.
More importantly, this has 8 far field mics so you can talk to it across the room when your not in front of it, which tablets do not as well as more powerful speakers since its larger than tablets. Ultimately they are combining the benefits of their echo and the benefits of a tablet in one device.
While this makes sense, Apple announces their own version next month of presumably a show style version and some hockey puck styles versions and medium versions they will most likely blow Amazon away in the long run, since they have the integrations of Siri, the Mac ecosystem and beats technology. Though will come down to how many third parties they support which Amazon has a major lead on.
If they're spying on me I need to charge them for the sedation, because watching me would put them to sleep faster than propofol lol
Why doesn't Apple just make a dock that you can drop your iThing into that improves the microphone and speakers so you can, I don't know, do the same thing? Oh, and fix Siri first. Then they won't have to spend years developing a whole new machine like it's going to take them to figure out how to build a modular Pro desktop computer like the one they killed off. Oh wait...they've probably already wasted the time already, huh? Never mind.
Siri is functionally sparse and homekit is an unfulfilled promise.
There was virtually no thought put into this design..it appears rushed to the market "beat the competitors who may be doing this" product. That being said, I COULD see this being useful perhaps in the kitchen as a hub for recipes and things of that nature. But not at it's current price.
The same reason people use Alexa in a Cylinder rather than Siri on the phone.
Logically we shouldn't need these "Ladies in a Can" products since every single one of us own phones. But there's an intangible convenience of having a standalone home product like the Echo or Google Home. So this screen version of Echo is a natural evolution of the product.
I'm sure people out here will be bitter about its existence but If this had FaceTime support I'd be all over it
At this point, i'm going to wait until end of year to see what Apple Does. I already have an Echo and Echo Dot in the house. These work fine. Siri, FaceTime and iMessage on a small screen in the kitchen will be great and look way nicer than what Amazon has done.