Siri is welcoming a friend to the iPhone: Alexa.
iPhone users can now make use of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, although they will need to press the microphone icon in the Amazon app to do so. There, consumers can ask Alexa to play music, track Amazon orders, answer questions or control smart-home devices, among other skills.
Consumers can also, of course, ask Alexa to order items from Amazon.
The news points to a sign of how large Alexa’s user base has become, Ben Arnold, NPD Group executive director, industry analyst, told TWICE. “It’s now too big for a major platform like iOS to ignore. Many iPhone users are now also Alexa users — it makes sense to make iOS devices a touch point in that experience.”
“It also potentially adds an interesting dynamic to using Alexa,” Arnold added. “I think it could certainly open up some doors in how consumers use their iPhone, Alexa and the Echo speakers all together.”
TWICE reached out to Amazon to ask when the functionality would be rolled out to the Alexa app, as well as to Android, but hadn’t heard back at press time.
