Apple Is Working On Amazon Echo Competitor

The Amazon Echo has become the hit that nobody had ever expected. USA Today recently wrote an article about what it described as a “sleeper hit.”

“The Amazon Echo is turning out to be a sleeper hit. The stand-alone, voice-activated digital assistant is on back order, it was cited when premium speaker maker Sonos announced layoffs and it appears to be prompting other device makers (think Google’s Nest) to work on their own look-alike services.”

As USA Today notes, the Amazon Echo is the much-needed hit Amazon needed after their Fire Phone turned out to be one of the most disastrous flops in recent technology history. Once a product becomes a huge hit, there are bound to be a lot of other companies wanting to put out a similar product. According to CNET, that’s exactly what Apple is doing.

“Apple’s rival to the Echo could know who you are just by looking at you. The consumer electronics giant has explored putting a camera in its device, which could come in the form of a smart speaker like Amazon’s Echo, according to people familiar with Apple’s plans.”

CNET adds that the device would be self aware and detect who is in the room using facial recognition features. This would let the device pull up a person’s preferences, such as the music and lighting they like. Many of the commenters after the article are very snarky.

“Exciting technology! Putting a camera and microphone that’s always on and always connected to the internet into everyone’s home! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?” asks Rschiwal.

“Hard to believe there are actually people out there that would allow any company to bring in their cameras and/or microphones into their homes, always connected to that company’s servers. Always on. Always listening. Always watching,” says Wise_up_people.

Even Gizmodo says Apple’s new device sounds absolutely terrifying.

“It’s great that Apple wants to effortlessly acknowledge my love of mood lighting and a little Sleater-Kinney. It is also the stuff of ol’ George Orwell’s nightmares,” says author Alex Cranz.

9to5Mac adds in some more information about their new Amazon Echo competitor.

“But a follow-up report this week claimed that the Apple TV could be used as the hardware for Apple’s Amazon Echo competitor for Siri. And yet another report today claimed Apple is experimenting with including a camera and facial recognition in its hardware as a differentiator from Google and Amazon.”

The article adds that Apple’s new hardware might not be ready until 2017. The comments on Twitter are mixed.

I always thought having an at home internet speaker was a terrible idea but now that apple is making one im excited https://t.co/exXSleG98i

— Luke Z (@lukeoutloud) May 24, 2016

"It's the stuff of Orwell nightmares" @alexhcranz Hilarious report on #Apple #Echo rival https://t.co/CMkixcrKxJ pic.twitter.com/ikmILvy7RC

— Alison van Diggelen (@FreshDialogues) May 27, 2016

We likely won’t find out any new information on Apple’s answer to the Amazon Echo very soon, but we may know as soon as next month what Apple has in store for the next MacBook Pro. According to Gizmodo, there are dependable rumors that suggest the new MacBook Pro will be a dramatic redesign of the current one. It looks like Apple is going to put an OLED panel right under the main screen. The panel will probably replace the function keys.

Are you excited about any of Apple’s upcoming products? Does the new MacBook Pro excite you? What about the Amazon Echo-like device? Let us know in the comments section.

[Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images]