Hear, hear: Amazon all set to take on Apple AirPods with its first-ever Alexa wearable
The initiative is a major move beyond the home for Amazon’s consumer hardware.
By Bloomberg | Updated:
The Amazon earbuds won’t have built-in cellular connectivity and will require pairing with a phone.
By Mark Gurman
Amazon.com Inc. is trying a new way to take its Alexa digital assistant mobile: wireless earbuds that mirror Apple Inc.’s popular AirPods.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is readying earbuds with built-in Alexa access for as early as the second half of this year, according to people with knowledge of the plans. The headphones will look and act similar to AirPods, but people working on the product inside Amazon are striving for better audio quality, the people said. Like the AirPods, the Amazon earbuds are designed to sit inside users’ ears without clips around the ear.
The product is one of the most important projects at Amazon’s Lab126 hardware division, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private work. The company has also been working on a home robot for consumers with Alexa, code-named Vesta, Bloomberg reported last year.
The headphones will let people use their voice to order goods, access music, weather and other information on the go. The Amazon digital assistant will be summoned by saying "Alexa." There will be physical gesture controls, such as tapping to pick up and end calls and switch between songs, the people said. Amazon declined to comment.
Apple charges $159 to $199 for AirPods. Amazon hardware typically undercuts the competition.
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The initiative is a major move beyond the home for Amazon’s consumer hardware. The Fire smartphone flopped in 2015, but the company’s Echo smart speakers became a surprise hit that brought Alexa into millions of houses and apartments. A battery-powered Echo speaker was discontinued. And an Alexa plug-in for cars has limited availability. Amazon has also opened Alexa up to other headphone makers, such as Bose Corp.
The Amazon earbuds won’t have built-in cellular connectivity and will require pairing with a phone.
The main check on Alexa’s growth remains Amazon’s lack of a smartphone and leading mobile operating system. Digital assistants from Apple and Google have huge ready-made user bases because the technology is embedded in hundreds of millions of iPhones, iPads, Watches and Android mobile devices.
The Amazon earbuds won’t have built-in cellular connectivity and will require pairing with a phone. This means working through Apple and Google, which Amazon already does with its Alexa apps. That’s a strategic headache for Amazon, which is using Alexa to grab an early lead in voice-based computing and to get its main e-commerce business in front of more people.
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Amazon has faced some development delays, according to the people with knowledge of the plans. The company has been seeking suppliers and manufacturing partners in recent months, one of the people said. Amazon has launched a bevy of new devices around September the past couple of years.
The earbuds will come in a storage case that doubles as a charger. Users will be able to plug it in over a standard USB cable. The company has tested the headphones in black and gray colors, the people also said.
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Earbuds are a fast-growing category of wearables: 12.5 million pairs were sold in the fourth quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. Apple’s AirPods had 60 percent of this market.
Apple Gets Serious About Services, Unveils TV+, Card, Arcade At Special Event
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By Karan Bajaj
Apple has typically held special events for hardware. Which is why a dedicated event for services was a surprise. Of the many services that were announced, only Apple Arcade and TV+ are expected to go global at launch. Karan Bajaj decodes some of the news from the event.
Image: Reuters
By Karan BajajApple has typically held special events for hardware. Which is why a dedicated event for services was a surprise. Of the many services that were announced, only Apple Arcade and TV+ are..
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TV+ is the name for Apple’s upcoming video streaming service (think of it like a Netflix competitor) and this is what most rumours were talking about before the official announcement. This subscription will work with the new Apple TV app which will not only be available for Apple devices (iOS, Apple TV, Mac) but also for other platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire TV and smart TV platforms from Samsung, LG and Sony.
The video streaming service will feature a number of exclusive shows and various celebrities came on stage at the announcement event including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, J. J Abraham, M. Night Shyamalan and Jason Momoa. Just like Apple Arcade, the TV+ service can be shared using Family Sharing with up to 6 other people in the family. Once again, no further details of the subscription fees were announced by Apple but the service will launch in 100+ countries (including India) from fall 2019.
In the US, Apple is giving users the option to subscribe to TV channels like HBO and Showtime and watch them from within the Apple TV app. Users pay only for the channels they want to watch. These channels and Apple TV App will be available from May 2019 but it seems unlikely that India will get this feature in the first wave. If at all, Apple may decide on content partnerships with existing players in India like Eros Now, Zee5, Hungama and others.
Image: AFP
TV+ is the name for Apple’s upcoming video streaming service (think of it like a Netflix competitor) and this is what most rumours were talking about before the official announcement. This subscripti..
Read More
This was the first service that Apple announced. Apple card is a digital credit card for your iPhone that works via Apple Pay, backed by Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. You can apply for and receive a digital card within minutes — it appears in your Wallet app. You can also apply for a fancy physical Titanium card to use in stores that don’t support Apple Pay. All your expenses show up in the app with details of location, time and amount in a clean and easy to understand format. The card also gives you a cashback of 2% on every purchase (3% on purchases from the App Store or Apple Stores). However, Apple Card will only be available in the US.
Image: AFP
This was the first service that Apple announced. Apple card is a digital credit card for your iPhone that works via Apple Pay, backed by Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. You can apply for and receive a ..
Read More
Apple already offers a News app which is not available for Indian users. News+ is an upgrade to this service and has several handy features including offline downloads and access to over 300 newspapers and magazines. While the News app is available for free, the News+ service is paid — you pay US$ 9.99/month for these additional features with Family Sharing enabled.
A single subscription can be shared with up to 6 family members at no extra cost. You still retain all the feature of the News app. The app learns from your reading habits and shows you relevant content of your interest the more you use it — Apple was quick to point out that this intelligence is all on your local device. They don’t know what you read and also won’t allow advertisers to track you. All news is curated by human editors and you can also set the app to autodownload the latest issue of your favorite magazine as it gets added to the catalogue. However there is no announcement for an India launch and we don’t think Apple has any plans for it either.
Image: AFP
Apple already offers a News app which is not available for Indian users. News+ is an upgrade to this service and has several handy features including offline downloads and access to over 300 newspape..
Read More
Arcade is the name of Apple’s gaming subscription service. First and foremost, Arcade is attempting to unify gaming across all iOS devices (iPads, iPhones), Apple TV as well as Macs. While the rest of the world looks toward cloud gaming (like Google Stadia), Apple is taking a different approach. You pay a subscription fee per month/year to get access to curated games that are already available on the App Store plus Apple exclusive game titles (over 100 titles confirmed for now). You can download these games from the App Store to any device and enjoy game continuity (start playing on one device and resume on another). There will be no ads, no in-app purchases and no catch.
Apple also lets you share the subscription with up to 6 family members. Further details regarding the subscription amount was not announced but Apple did say that it would launch in 150+ countries this fall. This means we can expect Arcade to be ready when the new iPhone launches in September/October 2019.
Image: AFP
Arcade is the name of Apple’s gaming subscription service. First and foremost, Arcade is attempting to unify gaming across all iOS devices (iPads, iPhones), Apple TV as well as Macs. While the rest o..
After early jokes when AirPods launched in 2016, the product has become a huge hit for Apple, helping to augment slower iPhone sales. The company is working on a third-generation, higher-end pair with noise-cancellation and water resistance, according to people familiar with the plans.
The AirPods are part of Apple’s accessories segment, which generated $17.4 billion in revenue or 7 percent of sales in the most-recent fiscal year. Samsung Electronics Co. recently unveiled Galaxy Buds, which work similarly to AirPods and Amazon’s planned device. Apple’s Beats business, Jabra Corp., and Sony Corp. are also players in the wireless earbuds market.
The concept hasn’t been as successful for everyone. Google launched Pixel Buds last year. They were criticized for having a flimsy charging case.
