Interface Marriage
Is the long-simmering battle for the smart home finally reaching a boiling point? Are we all on the verge of welcoming a new lodger into our homes, a know-it-all roommate who will likely be named Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Bixby or . . . Google(?!). I think it is and I think we are.
Strategies are being refined, battle lines are being drawn, armies are amassing. The usual suspects, having been engaged in initial skirmishes – a kind of low-stakes proxy war – are preparing for all-out conflict. Amazon v. Google v. Microsoft v. Samsung v. Apple. The scale, influence and wealth of these five behemoths mean this is going to be an epic high-stakes struggle. Game on.
Yes, there's always going to be some new territory to conquer, some new market share to be gained or stolen. But the reality, it seems, is that most of us have already chosen sides, unwittingly. Apple loyalists will mostly likely stick with Siri and buy the TBA Apple virtual assistant device; Android/Google devotees will be more inclined to embrace Google Home. Ditto for steadfast Samsung and Microsoft customers. (As for Amazon . . . we shouldn't underestimate them – for all we know, Bezos may be redefining the whole game.)
Why? Because of the ever-expanding and increasingly influential hardware/OS/software/app ecosystems in which we choose to live. The moats around them are getting wider. At the same time, the primary user interfaces (#UX) – the things that determine success or failure in digital – are essentially indistinguishable. At this point in history, voice is the apotheosis of computer interfaces. Tech and software companies, always searching for ways to reduce friction, have reached another milestone. Remember when touch screens became a thing? This is way bigger, presaging what is to come with AI and robotics.
So, the "input" is effectively the same for all platforms. What about the output? Aside from proprietary and personal things like photos, schedules, contacts, etc., information and data are coming from third-parties. Let's assume that those information feeds – news, weather info, movie showtimes, sports scores, traffic info, etc. – are all reasonably accurate and reliable. That means the output, whether in the form of a voice answer or an image or a video or page of text or numbers, or a combination, will be substantially similar, if not identical. Does anyone think Siri is smarter than Alexa or Cortana? Not yet. Wait.
No, the real difference will be the way your assistant integrates the disparate things in your existing and always-evolving ecosystem. All that voice input will feed the bottomless information appetite of your virtual assistant, which means it will continuously get smarter . . . and more valuable. And that of course will only draw you deeper into your chosen platform. And the moats will be harder to breach than ever. Especially when virtual becomes physical and Rosie the Robot joins the family.
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