Skip to main content

Amazon releases new ‘Amazon Tap’ and ‘Echo Dot’, more competition for Apple’s Siri voice assistant

feature-smallstrongsmart

The Amazon Echo has become somewhat of a hit success, with many users preferring Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to Apple’s Siri because of faster speech recognition speed, reliability and overall better performance. Amazon is continuing to compete in the voice assistant space with the release of two new products today: the Amazon Tap and Echo Dot.

The new products focus on expanding Amazon’s voice assistant into more rooms of your house as well as on-the-go. It’s an interesting strategy to make Alexa-dedicated devices, whereas Apple currently offers Siri only as a feature of its existing iOS, Apple Watch and Apple TV products.

While the original Amazon Echo was meant to be set down in a room and left alone, the Amazon Tap ($129.99) is a portable Bluetooth speaker with Echo capabilities built-in thanks to the inclusion of Wi-Fi. As well as being a feature-rich Bluetooth speaker for music playback with high-quality sound, you can connect the device to a network to unlock its voice assistant features a la Siri.

Like Apple Music + Siri, Alexa can intelligently respond to requests like ‘Play Jazz’ or ‘Shuffle my Bruno Mars music’ as well as answer question about the news, weather and more. Interestingly, Alexa can also integrate with third-party apps to make them voice-enabled too. This means the Amazon Tap can control a whole host of music sources like iHeartRadio, Pandora or Spotify. This is a big win over Siri, where third-party app integration is notably lacking.

The Amazon Echo Dot costs $89.99 is currently only available to Prime Members who own an Echo or Amazon Fire TV. The Dot is a small puck device that helps extend the voice recognition range of the Amazon Echo to new rooms in the house, kind of like using an Apple AirPort Express to extend the range of a Wi-Fi network. It connects to existing speakers in your house to reply and stream music, although it does have a small internal speaker for things like timers. In general, it should be thought of as a satellite microphone for the Alexa device already in your home.

The Echo Dot is available from today, and the Tap is officially on sale from March 31st. Preorders start today, however.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    Amazon, I won’t buy any of your products until you start selling the ATV4.

  2. therazorpit - 8 years ago

    Nice strategy Amazon. Glad to see some progression of the technology. I feel like Siri has taken a few steps backwards if anything. She still refuses to call “Mitty’s Pizza” or “The Rice Inn” or “Luciano’s Pizza” all who are in my contacts and instead tries to call Mexican(?), German(?), and Italian restaurants 10 miles away from my house. Seems like she wants to go out on the internet before looking on the device first. Never use to be that way.

  3. jakexb - 8 years ago

    We have an Echo for testing at work. I’m really impressed by it. Since it’s plugged in, it can be always-on and listening in a more responsive way than the “Hey Siri” can on an iPhone. And since this is all it does, they were able to put 7 directional microphones all along the top edge, so you can speak entirely normally across the room and still activate it. Add to that the more unique activation word “Alexa”.

    I’m sure Siri could be as good as the Echo if Apple were to build a similar hardware device. I’m surprised Apple didn’t go this direction with the Apple TV, instead using the Siri remote that requires a button press. Maybe future versions?

  4. Kevin Kittredge - 8 years ago

    I love my Echo and ordered a Dot immediately because the only complaint I have about the Echo is that I can’t afford to put one in each room of my house. There is one inaccuracy in this article, but I understand the mistake based on the ordering process. The Echo Dot is also a preorder, the Echo Dot is not being released until March 31st. I was disappointed to discover that I’d have to wait…

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.