Despite what some armchair analysts predicted, Apple didn't announce an Alexa/Google Home competitor.
Apple instead focused in launching SiriKit, which expands what Siri can do to existing devices. Alexa can expand, but Google Now can't, like Cortana which also doesn't offer this.
The most obvious usage for these kind of devices, is for home automation, Apple holds the crown with most devices and most diversified line on the market for their HomeKit platform, and more coming according to this year CES, second comes Samsung which has security problems, and also seems like only Samsung is developing for it, while Microsoft doesn't have anything on this, and Google's Project Weave (strikingly similar to HomeKit, even the process and the protocols, that launched in 2015) and Android Brillo produced zero devices on the market. Amazon doesn't have a uniform platform for this, but their Alexa can expand to accommodate devices.
Apple instead tells us "use our existing devices" with now the 4 platforms now supporting Siri, some newer devices with hot word detection, and a first party application for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple Watch.
Despite ludicrous statements and pushes from the press, nobody is buying Alexa, and despite The Verge and everyone else trying VERY HARD to undermine the success of the Apple Watch, is that the "flop" dwarves completely the novel Amazon speaker.
In my opinion, Google's product is going to the way of the Nexus Q, specially when it launches, and Android people realize it costs money for the same function they have on their watches.
I predict that Apple won't release anything similar and the thing that one day could have been a product category will die once and for all, as Jeff Bezos searches for anything new and unproven to show to Wall Street, that is, if the Startup bubble won't burst before.
Apple instead focused in launching SiriKit, which expands what Siri can do to existing devices. Alexa can expand, but Google Now can't, like Cortana which also doesn't offer this.
The most obvious usage for these kind of devices, is for home automation, Apple holds the crown with most devices and most diversified line on the market for their HomeKit platform, and more coming according to this year CES, second comes Samsung which has security problems, and also seems like only Samsung is developing for it, while Microsoft doesn't have anything on this, and Google's Project Weave (strikingly similar to HomeKit, even the process and the protocols, that launched in 2015) and Android Brillo produced zero devices on the market. Amazon doesn't have a uniform platform for this, but their Alexa can expand to accommodate devices.
Apple instead tells us "use our existing devices" with now the 4 platforms now supporting Siri, some newer devices with hot word detection, and a first party application for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple Watch.
Despite ludicrous statements and pushes from the press, nobody is buying Alexa, and despite The Verge and everyone else trying VERY HARD to undermine the success of the Apple Watch, is that the "flop" dwarves completely the novel Amazon speaker.
In my opinion, Google's product is going to the way of the Nexus Q, specially when it launches, and Android people realize it costs money for the same function they have on their watches.
I predict that Apple won't release anything similar and the thing that one day could have been a product category will die once and for all, as Jeff Bezos searches for anything new and unproven to show to Wall Street, that is, if the Startup bubble won't burst before.
