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Amazon's Alexa has 80,000 Apps -- and No Runaway Hit (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Amazon's Echo-branded smart speakers have attracted millions of fans with their ability to play music and respond to queries spoken from across the room. But almost four years after inviting outside developers to write apps for Alexa, Amazon's voice system has yet to offer a transformative new experience. From a report: Surveys show most people use their smart speakers to listen to tunes or make relatively simple requests -- "Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes" -- while more complicated tasks prompt them to give up and reach for their smartphone. Developers had less trouble creating hits for previous generations of technology.

Think Angry Birds or Pokemon Go on the iPhone, or, decades ago, spreadsheets on the first Windows computers. Amazon counts some 80,000 "skills" -- its name for apps -- in its marketplace. It seems impressive, but at this point in their development, Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store each boasted more than 550,000 applications and minted fortunes for many successful developers. "This platform is almost four years old, and you can't point me to one single killer app," says Mark Einhorn, who created a well-reviewed Alexa game that lets users operate a simulated lemonade stand and is one of 10 developers interviewed for this story.

10 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Transformative App by weilawei · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The transformation will come when I allow one into my house, because it runs 100% locally with open source code and audited and/or open hardware. Not before.

    Oh, who am I kidding? The next generation doesn't care about those ideas and values. And... that's okay. I'm not in the business of forcing my values on others, but it's sad to see.

    1. Re:Transformative App by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Funny

      Try putting your phone in airplane mode some time and try doing the speech-to-text thing with the Google keyboard. It works!

      I think you are assuming that airplane mode works.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re:Transformative App by weilawei · · Score: 2

      Damnit, that's actually not at all as billed, and in many ways just as bad.

      It can't run 100% locally. It requires you to make an account with their servers and send your data to them.

      Screw that.

    3. Re:Transformative App by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you are assuming that airplane mode works.

      RF is not difficult to detect, especially a cm from the transmitter.

      You need a better conspiracy theory.

    4. Re:Transformative App by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can run DeepSpeech locally, or it sends your data to train DeepSpeech now. Check the privacy policy and read up on DeepSpeech and you might change your mind. Many folks in the forums have DeepSpeech running locally too, but you need a more powerful machine for that obviously, with a GPU if you want true real time. I did quite a bit of digging before installing it. I couldn't find the hidden agenda and am happy to help train DeepSpeech.

  2. It's because it's the computer terminal of voice by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason there's not anything compelling out of so many apps, is that Alexa is really the equivalent of the computer terminal for voice access of computers...

    That is to say, it's pretty primitive and early days of what is possible for interacting with computers via voice.

    Until we get to interactions like you saw in the movie Her, I don't know that people will find voice assistants beyond mildly useful. When they get to the point they can emulate a relationship and we can develop feelings for them... then you might have something.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  3. Apps aren’t good enough by Kohath · · Score: 2

    Where’s the interactive, conversational app that teaches me Chinese by talking about current events and correcting my pronunciation?

  4. Re:It's because it's the computer terminal of voic by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These smart speakers are just a glorified command line interface (With a little more flexible parser)
    The thing that gets people, is the commercials show them using Alexia to do all sorts of cool stuff, only to realize you need to spend $50 for a smart power socket or light switch, $20 for a smart bulb. In short where it really smarts is your wallet.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. Re:It's because it's the computer terminal of voic by BringsApples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When they get to the point they can emulate a relationship and we can develop feelings for them... then you might have something.

    I thought that's what people are for.

    --
    Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
  6. And it remains as limited as ever by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

    What I find amazing about Alexa (and the other digital assistants) is, on the whole, how limited they continue to be. There are very few things that they can do faster and better than people can do themselves with a minimum of effort. And they still spin their wheels hopelessly when you try to get them to do anything that contains even a little bit of ambiguity.

    These assistants are great if you want to get them to do something that they have been taught to do. Otherwise, they are almost useless. The problem is, for the most part what they have been taught to do is something that either you can do yourself, faster and more efficiently, and with a minimum of effort, or else stuff that you are not really all that interested in - except, perhaps, for grins and giggles.