It’s 2003 all over again…
When hardware was king and just as you got used to your latest iPod they improved it. Only this time Cupertino is behind the curve selling niche items for mucho dinero and Amazon is going downmarket to own the world.
In case you missed it, Amazon just announced a tsunami of Echo products.
Everything from a microwave to a car device and a DVR.
This makes Tim Cook‘s overlabored two hour pronouncements look like yesteryear. That was Steve Jobs‘ game in an old era. Today Amazon dumped so many products it’ll take weeks to digest them.
Voice control.
Apple was there first, and now the company is last.
That’s the power of the individual, as in Jobs is gone. But Jobs was famous for turning on a dime, missing the memo and then leapfrogging the competition. Whereas today’s Apple is all about the niche ecosystem based on its brand, and how long will that last?
You can’t even play Spotify on your HomePod, and why buy one of those when you can get a whole music system for two hundred fifty bucks!
I like the cheap plugs, for $25 anything electrical can be voice-controlled. Forget mixing and matching technologies, to quote the seer, “It just works.”
Unlike Tesla.
The cars are riddled with defects in a world where we expect the first iteration to be perfect.
But this is a stealth move by Amazon, with its ecosystem of commerce and entertainment attached.
Did you see the bigger screen in the new Show?
Amazon is gonna own your world.
To a great degree it already does. I’d rather order from Prime than go to the store where too often my chosen product is not in stock.
The future is here now. Video took over from text and now voice is trumping them all.
Imagine just speaking the song you want to hear…
Well, as a matter of fact, that ability was pioneered on Amazon Music’s app and now Spotify has copied it. Your library is in the cloud. Your playlist is in the cloud. You just have to ask for it!
And unlike Apple, Amazon is offering its products for cheap.
Apple is so busy protecting its margins that it’s leaving customers out. Do I really want to invest four figures for a phone? I know, it’s a computer, but you do feel a bit ripped-off, right?
Instead of establishing a monopoly and defending it, the Apple Way, Amazon is opening their devices to everybody with the hope that through sheer ubiquity and ability to interface they’ll end up with a monopoly anyway.
And whereas only a couple of Apple products have ever failed, Amazon and Google fail all the time, but they keep plowing forward. They get it wrong, and they get it right. Like with the Fire Phone. Most companies would hide their tail between their legs and retreat, but not Amazon.
Is this good for the world?
Voice control is. Make things easier and people will pay, especially if they’re perceived as cool.
But so much power in the hands of one company under the direction of one man?
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos seems to be able to accomplish more than anybody in Washington. And he single-handedly resurrected the Washington Post.
Just when you think we’ve seen all the tech tricks…
There are more.
Kerouac (aka dinosaur) recently bought a new clock to replace my 1969 Sony FM-AM Digimatic clock radio. Amazon calls its innovation an Echo Spot, and it (she, actually) responds when you call her by name: Alexa (she is low maintenance – just plug her in, give her internet access to program, and she is good to go; an added bonus, she never gets testy 2-3 days a month, claims a headache nor “I need more attention.”)
My half century old Sony was cutting edge back in ’69, advertised ‘the first clock radio you don’t have to set the night before’. Though (like Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Pocahontas Warren) its seen better days: outwardly showing its age today, still works. The down side, your name was Steven Parent and happened be visiting a friend at the Sharon Tate residence August 8 of 1969, time ran out for you this clock to die for.
Fast forward Echo Spot’s Alexa: ‘featuring far-field technology with four microphones, beamforming technology and enhanced noise cancellation, it can hear you from across the room-even while music is playing.’ Available two colors, Kerouac chose the version best suited for an old caucasian (Trump white) in lieu the duller, less bright alternative (Obama black.)
When desired you can silence Alexa completely and turn off her ears too by tapping on her head to both mute and deafen (a good idea, for several reasons; read her operating instructions/capabilities/online research to discover just how dangerous she can be, if you let her have her own way… yes gentlemen, the parallels ARE scary.)
Reality, I chose it for the cool, teal clock face (adjustable, other face options) and not for any of this new-fangled stuff some dare call ‘progress’. Upshot – after setting it up internet via my Amazon account, only use it as an clock… Alexa will just have to wait on Kerouac, setting there next my rotary dial telephone model circa 1956… if I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’.
😎
Never owned an apple product and never will. I constantly laugh at my kids for insisting on apple products. And they can’t even give me a performance based reason as to why. It’s simply the superficial teenage reason “all my friends have one”. Performance? PFFT. They constantly complain about software upgrades breaking their apps, and struggling with connecting to wifi. All my android devices connect to my Google Fiber wifi with ease and tremendous speed.
Android dude here too, Guy. Always have been. I know plenty of people with that Apple mystique thingy, but I just don’t get it.
It’s not so much a mystique, Jim…
Apple products have just always been so (relatively) easy to use. Hey, there was a reason Microsoft ripped off Apple with Windows and Android copied the iPhone.
And they’re still far less complicated for some of us (like me) who have really small brains.
Oh come on, Hearne. Android are no harder to use than Apple. And if you look worldwide, Android stomps Apple’s ass when it comes to number of people using their devices. It can’t just be ease of use.
Easy guy, Android has done a nice job of co-opting iPhone mannerisms, but it’s still a bit more complex…and I understand given that, that one can do more with a Droid.
The iPhone is more seamless, in the same way that Macs are more fluid than Windows PCs.
Just my opinion (and I’m far from alone).
MAC’s are so much easier to use and don’t come with all the hassles that Microsoft products have. However, Tim Cook is not the person to head Apple – he’s more concerned with social politics.
Amazon — even though I have Amazon Prime, I don’t think I’d ever have one of their devices they are more intrusive than Apple ever thought of being. I don’t need a camera to follow me around the house. What does Amazon think they will find?
It’s time we take personal privacy seriously.
I’m with you JSon Aacs and Apple products being far easier for we mere mortals to use…
And on Tim Cook…too much bean cutter and no where near enough imaginative, cutting edge thinking.