In e99 of Exponent, Ben Thompson makes a compelling case for his idea that Amazon Echo (Alexa) is an operating system – and that Amazon has beaten Apple (with Siri) and Google Home (with Assistant) at the very game they both try to play.
And I think he’s onto the start of something (he goes on to elaborate a bit in his note that Apple TV turned 10 this week (along with the little thing most people have never heard of, iPhone)).
But he’s only on the *start* of something. See, Apple TV is cheaper than Amazon Echo – by $30 for the entry model (it’s $20 more for the model with more storage). Echo Dot is cheaper, but also is less interesting (imo). And Alexa doesn’t have any local storage (that I know of).
And neither of them will stream video.
By Apple TV has something going for it – it *already* has Siri enabled. In other words, it has the home assistant features many people want, and does video and audio streaming to boot.
It handles live TV via apps like DIRECTV or Sling. And Netflix and other options for streaming (including, of course, iTunes).
Oh, and it handles AirPlay, so you can plop whatever’s on your iPhone, iMac, etc onto your TV (like a Chromecast).
But Apple doesn’t seem to focus on any of that. They have a device which, by all rights, ought to be at least equal (and probably superior to) with its competition – but they seem to think their competition is Roku or the Fire Stick. From a pricing perspective, those are the wrong folks to be considering your competition.
It’s Google and Amazon Apple should have in its sights – because Apple TV *ought* to beat the ever living pants of both Home and Echo.
If HomeKit exists on Apple TV, and you have Siri on Apple TV, why is it not the center of home automation?
I believe the idea is that new Apple TV is to be the “hub” for any and all home automation. it’s always at home, and always plugged in. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s always online, even if it’s just a background daemon while the rest of the unit is in sleep mode just in case a request comes in.
I hope that is their direction – because they’re primed to be a major contender in this arena
I own both an Apple TV and an Echo Dot (which is functionally equivalent to the Echo just without a “nice” speaker). I have both of them hooked up to control my lights (via Homekit for Apple and via Alexa on the Echo Dot). I can say that controlling them through Alexa blows away controlling them through Homekit. It’s much faster and works more reliably than asking Siri to control them does. Many times Siri just comes back and says it didn’t hear back and does nothing. Based on my experience, I use Alexa to control my home automation and pretty much ignore Siri and Homekit.
I definitely agree Amazon has Google and Apple bested at the moment (though how seems a total mystery – Google and Apple (and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft) should be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else given how long they’ve been doing the voice thing)