The iPhone 7 headphone jack-less move by Apple was sure the star of the company’s event last week. As if that was not enough, Apple also whets our appetite with the idea of presenting us with AirPods for future computing. This is a wireless earbud that costs $159 that will grant access to the digital voice that assists Siri with just one touch.
The upcoming iOS 10 update, other apps as WhatsApp messages and others will be able to work with Siri.
Apple said they are training people to form the habit of leaving their AirPods at all time in their ear in an effort to show them that Siri will do all they want to do without needing to have their phones in their hand.
Apple is taking an advantage of its ability to make use of voice controls and artificial intelligence to better interact with the computers to look more like humans communicating with humans.
This will impress people that are not tech savvy using iPhones. There will be no need for them to go through the challenge of getting to know how to use many of the features.
About Alexa, Amazon Dot voice assistant
Although it is still a small step made, it has the potential to break the work of “audible computing.”
Amazon with its smart speakers –Echo will pose as a big competition to Apple. What this implies is that we foresee a war between Siri and Alexa by Amazon in the world of digital assistance.
The Echo smart speaker by Amazon which was released in November of 2014 has recorded huge success with Amazon revealing that it is about to sell not less than three million of this speaker before the end of this year. By the time 2017 waves us goodbye, the sales would have recorded 10 million amounting to about a business of $1 billion.
One thing that makes Echo appealing is its passivity. It can sit in a place without disrupting you until you need something to be done by calling on Alexa which works with the speakers.
Apple vs. Amazon
Obviously, the two companies are competing to get as many people as they can in the developing world of voice computing since the sale of smartphones are not yielding much anymore.
The two are good and also have their flaws. For Apple Siri, users will need to have the AirPods in their ear all the time while that of Amazon’s Echo stays at home.
People might, however, be more open to Siri since it is deemed invasive and a new way of operating. The company’s upcoming AirPod-driven future which is wireless could also mean that Amazon’s Echo will be dead on arrival.
At the moment, the market can accommodate the two. However, the tech market is seriously looking for new ways for computing to bring about virtual reality and holograms in a speech-driven interface. There eventually will be winners and there will also be losers.
Apple still has the challenge of making Siri popular among their users.
