Amazon’s Siri competitor, Alexa is all set to play a greater role in Apple territory now that the voice controlled personal assistant is being made integral to the official Amazon iOS app. This will provide iPhone users with another option to have their queries answered or having their shopping needs fulfilled.
The latter bit should be least surprising considering that online shopping happens to be one of the core business segments at Amazon. Alexa can help users to search for a product, place orders or track their existing orders, all via voice based commands.
These apart, Alexa is also able to perform other tasks that we have come to expect from the new crop of digital personal assistants. Those include playing your favorite songs or videos or answering general queries; like what the weather will be like tomorrow and so on.
Alexa’s integration to the Amazon iOS app also provides users with another option to control connected smart home devices such as light bulbs or speakers and such. You can even ask Alexa to play Kindle audiobooks too.
However, much of what Alexa is expected to pull off via the updated Amazon iOS app, Siri is already equipped to do most of that. In fact, Siri with its deeper system-wide integration with iOS makes it better placed to cater to user’s demands or requests.
That is not all as Siri can be invoked using the familiar ‘Hey Siri’ command which works even when the iPhone is locked. Alexa surely lacks these advantages and is only accessible when the app is launched.
Still, Alexa can prove to be useful for those who get their shopping done via Amazon’s online store. Besides, the personal assistant can also be productive when you have enough smart gadgets installed at your place and the new updated iOS app will save you from having multiple gadgets to have your diverse needs satisfied.
