“Siri Already Did It”
Amazon Alexa vs. Apple Siri
Shortly after getting the Amazon Echo, I wrote up some thoughts as to why I thought it would be the bridge to vocal computing. One common response to that post was along the lines of “Siri already does all of this, and more, at a much bigger scale.”
Fast forward three months, having used the Echo daily (except when on the road) for a full quarter and I believe even more in what I wrote. Having such a device in the kitchen, and now in the bedroom with the Echo Dot, is slowly but surely altering computing habits. Why do you need to pull out your phone, unlock it, and open an app to see what the weather is? Just ask. Why do you need to pull out your phone, unlock it, and open an app to set a timer? Just say that’s what you want to do.
But again, the above use cases are things Siri can in fact do as well. So why are we talking to Alexa instead? The answer is seemingly small details that add up in a very big way towards making the Echo a superior use case for vocal computing.
First and foremost, as I noted in the original post, the Echo is always listening. There is nothing to pull out, no button to push. Yes, with the iPhone 6s line, Siri is also always listening. But the key difference is the hit rate. Saying “Alexa” always seems to work. Saying “Hey Siri” seems to work about half the time or less, in my experience.
Perhaps this is buggy software, or over-doing the voice recognition in iOS. But just as important seems to be that Alexa sits out in the open, always in the same place. Your iPhone is usually in your pocket, or resting in a different place each time. It’s a total crapshoot whether it will hear you and/or if the device will be in position to give you vocal feedback.
Again, this seems like a small difference to people. (Why not just put your iPhone in the same place?) But in practice, it’s not.
I believe that in order to force the paradigm shift in getting people comfortable talking to these devices, a dedicated vocal-only device is necessary. Otherwise, you’ll revert to doing what you always do — taking your phone out of your pocket, unlocking it, and opening an app. This is simply human nature. You do what you know how to do — what you trust will work — even if it may take a bit longer.
Alexa gives you no other option — no crutch to fall back upon. It’s one of the reasons why it was ingenius for Amazon to only offer the Dot to those who ordered one, vocally, through the Echo. People need to be forcefully trained to do things in order to change deeply ingrained habits.
For a while, I thought I might be alone in thinking that Alexa is better than Siri in every way that matters when it comes to interaction.¹ But I’m clearly not. Most of the people I talk to who have an Echo echo these same sentiments. Some aren’t sure why Echo is so much better than iPhones/iPads with Siri, but they just know it is in day-to-day usage. And the reasons are some combination of the aspects mentioned above.
But what about the Apple Watch? Isn’t it a device that’s always out in the open (on your wrist) and always listening? Yes, but don’t get me started. If “Hey Siri” has a 50% hit rate on an iPhone, it’s more like a 25% hit rate on the Watch. And when it does decide it wants to work, it’s so unfathomably slow that it really would be far faster to pull out your phone, unlock it, and open an app — or push down the physical button to talk to Siri that way!
These low hit rates and slow speeds effectively train every user not to use Siri in this way.
So when I hear people say “Siri already did it” — the “Simpsons already did it” of tech — I now snicker. You have to use an Echo to understand, but once you do, you will. Said another way: if Apple were the inventors of Alexa, they would have invented Alexa.
¹ The data each has access to and can provide is a different matter entirely.
