Federico Viticci, MacStories, on the new Astra app:
Astra is, effectively, just a large microphone in the middle of the screen. You can sign into your Amazon account, give the app permission to record audio, and start sending messages to Alexa. To record a command, you hold down a Siri-like microphone button and then lift your finger to send a request to Alexa. When Astra displays a ‘Thinking…’ message it is not, in fact, processing your request on its own – the Alexa Voice Service is; Astra is just waiting for a response to speak back to you. Astra is a bridge to Alexa’s cloud brain: there are no visual messages and no interface elements built around Amazon’s assistant. Even the audio responses use Alexa’s standard voice.
This is a breach in Apple’s ecosystem, a way for a competing (and some would say, superior) service to live within the confines of the iOS walled garden. Google Maps is another example.
While Alexa and Astra might leach users away from Siri, Amazon is not a threat to steal users from iOS. But add in Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, which gives users access to Netflix, Amazon Video, etc., at a $40 price point, much, much cheaper than Apple TV’s entry point, and there’s the beginning of a slow erosion.
The thing that always gets left out when talking about Amazon competing with Apple is that Apple are in hundreds of countries, while Amazon are heavy into the US, a bit into the UK, and barely anywhere else.
You an use the built in mic on an iPhone with Google too.
Seriously you sound like the ‘Apple is doomed because Macs cost too much and PCs are cheaper’ people. You get what you pay for. Apples Siri and AppleTV (and their integration with everything else Apple) easily trumps the Amazon products. Even if they were free I’d still buy and use AppleTV.