Amazon might've missed the smartphone revolution and got out when they realized they couldn't beat the established Apple and Android players. Instead, they got in ahead in the next revolution: conversational computing. And boy did they get in ahead.
While Alexa isn't particularly smart, ubiquity is what will matter. I have an Echo Show on my bedside table and Siri is exponentially smarter. Alexa requires very rigid commands that you have to remember. Deviate too far from those commands and Alexa has no idea what you're asking even though Siri or Google would have no trouble understanding the context. Yet, it was so cheap that I put up with its mild annoyances.
Getting Alexa *everywhere* has put Amazon at the front and both Apple and Google should be worried. As AI gets smarter and closer and closer to speaking to a human and getting correct responses, Amazon is in a position to become
the established player. It doesn't matter how old and crummy the Echo devices are that Amazon has spread into every home, every hotel room, every office; because Alexa is in the cloud, even the low powered original Alexa devices will bring the future human-like personal assistant into all those places Amazon has spent a decade building a user base into.
This is why, despite what many people on MacRumors totally miss, Siri is one of the most important technologies for Apple going into the future. HomePod, by extension, is also so important that Apple could lose money on each one, that they'll keep selling it and iterating on its software because it's building a user base and establishing itself in people's homes for the coming conversational computing revolution.
If that's not clear enough, just look at the brand new Fifth Avenue store where Apple built a dedicated HomePod listening room. HomePod isn't going anywhere.
