Amazon is updating the Alexa app for Android and iOS, may be the biggest in years.
Amazon Alexa app improvements include updated navigation methods and more personalized experience based on how you use Alexa, particularly in relation to Skills. The new app will be available for Android, iOS, and Amazon’s own Fire OS.
Main Updates
One of the biggest updates is the home screen Alexa app will now have a large Alexa button at the top, which users can either tap to invoke the virtual assistant or simply say Alexa. There is a list of personalized suggestions, which will appear below, and will be based on how you interact with Alexa either on your phone or with any of the Alexa-enabled Echo smart speakers or third-party Alexa smart speakers that you may own. This will include music streaming, including suggestions from third-party apps upcoming reminders, music suggestions to pick up from where you left off last, and maybe even continue with an audiobook.
Amazon is prioritizing Alexa Skills in the updated Alexa app for Android and iPhone, third-party skills have been pushed back to a separate Skills & Games section. This is possible to simplify the experience for users and not complicate it with skills that they may or may not use often. There are changes to the Reminders, Settings, Routines and Skills menus as well for further simplification.
The change in how third-party skills are now listed within the app perhaps comes as a result of a recent study that shows most of these remain unused.
The fact that Amazon is now focusing on letting you pick up from where you last left off adds to a continuity that could let you shift music from an Echo speaker at home to the Echo Buds wireless earbuds as you are about to step out of home.
A research by Voicebot suggests that as many as 61% of Alexa’s third-party skills have no ratings at all, which indicates they aren’t popular. The research also says only 5% of Alexa skills have earned 10 or more ratings and just 1% have more than 100 ratings from users.
The new Amazon Alexa app will show up on your Android phone or Apple iPhone’s application stores anytime in the coming weeks for all the users.
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