Get Ready for Amazon Phone Take 2

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From Madison.com:

To say that Amazon’s first attempt at entering the wireless phone market did not go well would be sugarcoating on the level of saying, “the Titanic’s maiden voyage left room for improvement.”

Fire Phone was a near-instant failure. It was a device nobody really needed sold at a premium price. Its only truly new feature was a sort of 3D way to look at products, a gimmick that was not enough to get people to buy it.

Now, with the success of its Alexa artificial intelligence devices, including Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Tap, the company wants to get back into the phone business. This time, though, it’s not looking to replace your smartphone. Instead, the company wants to make your existing phone much more useful by integrating it with its Alexa-powered, voice-controlled devices.

. . . .

Consumers are already using the voice-controlled virtual assistant for everything from playing music to controlling smart devices in their home. Amazon clearly wants to make Alexa the central control device for people’s houses with Echo devices in every room.

Routing phone calls through Alexa-powered devices simply makes sense. It’s useful technology like when some cable providers that also offer phone service allow you to have caller ID on your television screen. That’s a minor benefit, but it’s a useful one that can save people from pausing whatever they are watching to go look at the phone only to see that it’s a call they don’t want to take.

Link to the rest at Madison.com and thanks to Dave for the tip.