Half of smart speaker users say they don’t seek out any voice apps at all
Every other smart speaker user who participated inwards a survey past times phonation software site Voicebot as well as Voicify, which makes developer tools, has said they don’t regain whatsoever phonation apps.
Conducted past times polling 1,038 smart speaker owners inwards the United States, the survey has discovered that the other one-half of respondents who regain phonation apps exercise then cheers to friends (26.8 percent), social media (15.4 percent), electronic mail newsletters (11.1 percent), advertisements (10.5 percent), word media (7.2 percent) as well as other ways (2.9 percent).
But only a meager 13.7 percentage of the respondents said they discovered novel phonation apps through their speaker’s official app store. To position it differently: less than i out of each 7 respondents didn’t fifty-fifty know how to regain an official app shop for their device. And that, boys as well as girls, highlights a major number amongst smart speakers similar Amazon’s Echo that offering downloadable software: app visibility as well as discoverability.
Matt Day, writing for Bloomberg yesterday:
Echo-branded smart speakers receive got attracted millions of fans amongst their powerfulness to play music as well as reply to queries spoken from across the room. But nearly 4 years subsequently inviting exterior developers to write apps for Alexa, Amazon’s phonation organization has all the same to offering a transformative novel experience.
Surveys present most people usage their smart speakers to take away heed to tunes or build relatively uncomplicated requests—’Alexa, set a timer for xxx minutes’—while to a greater extent than complicated tasks prompt them to surrender as well as attain for their smartphone.
Amazon offers a whopping 80,000 Alexa apps (skills) inwards its store, but the advent of the smart speaker has non triggered an app gilt rush similar nosotros saw amongst the modern smartphone.
None of this concerns HomePod direct because Apple’s accessory offers no downloadable apps. That said, this is an interesting occupation to ponder because HomePod may, as well as in all likelihood will, offering third-party apps at roughly betoken inwards the future. And when that hateful solar daytime arrives, how are nosotros going to download and, to a greater extent than importantly, regain cool novel HomePod apps?
This is how Amazon is tackling app discoverability issues:
Amazon has gotten creative to acquire people to effort novel things, emailing recommendations to Echo owners, programming a arrive at of prompts users tin give the sack enjoin aloud to effort novel things as well as referring users to the companion Alexa smartphone app.
One paradigm on Amazon’s screen-bearing Echo Show model seems to playfully admit that challenge, showing a cartoon paradigm of a individual angling overlaid amongst text suggesting people inquire Alexa what skills are available.
Blogs, social media as well as ads also come upwards to take away heed equally feasible avenues for seeking out novel apps. Still, the fact remains that these stores endure from discoverability problems.
As long equally HomePods rest screen-less, browsing phonation apps volition travel on on iOS. We’ll eventually endure able to download HomePod apps via voice, but that’s piffling as well as something y'all tin give the sack exercise immediately on other Apple devices (try asking Siri to download Facebook from App Store).
What HomePod would tremendously exercise goodness from is a visual storefront. Voice is only useful if y'all know the app’s championship beforehand then roughly variety of a visual interface would endure a must.
We’d also demand a dedicated HomePod app amongst a built-in shop akin to the companion Watch app for Apple Watch that includes a watchOS store. While a standalone helper app for HomePod would build sense, I mean value a shop should endure integrated inwards the Home app equally it already provides a settings interface for the Siri speaker.
Looking at the large picture, Apple could fifty-fifty ready a dedicated HomeKit shop that mightiness also furnish HomePod apps because the Home app already treats your HomePod equally all the same roughly other HomeKit accessory. That mightiness also aid amongst app discoverability: you’d browse phonation apps inwards the Home app much inwards the same agency y'all browse watchOS shop inside the Watch app.
I only promise such a shop volition endure visible for average Joes rather than terminate upwards existence ignored past times the bulk of users, similar the iMessage store. I only promise Apple won’t distribute HomePod apps equally extensions of their iOS counterparts.
That same model, employed for iMessage as well as other extension-based apps, has non proven itself real successful. And fifty-fifty if Apple provided an SDK for third-party HomePod development, creating phonation apps could real good endure easier said than done.
Amazon, which declined to comment, created a novel novel engineering scientific discipline amongst Alexa. But it poses problems for developers, who run across a steep learning crease inwards edifice phonation apps. Swapping visual cues for verbal ones forces them to unlearn one-time habits from edifice software for smartphones as well as the web.
Even subsequently creating an app, there’s no guarantee people volition regain it. While smartphone users tin give the sack rapidly eyeball a listing of available apps on a screen, multiple options acquire lost easily on a voice-based service.
Lastly, it’s unclear if writing HomePod apps would yield whatsoever immediate reward for developers. I desire to endure incorrect on this but am highly suspicious that the average smart speaker possessor would endure willing to part amongst their hard-earned cash to purchase an app for their device.
If you’re a developer, you’re facing a whole set of other challenges. Making matters fifty-fifty worse, it’s unclear at this phase if voice-based apps for smart speakers could always back upwards a self-sustaining draw of piece of work concern model.
Juniper Research analyst James Moar said that people receive got come upwards to await the commons types of apps on a smart speaker that include things similar a daily word summary, weather, timers as well as a random fact. Beyond that, “people aren’t actually experimenting that much,” he said.
As developer Mark Einhorn summed it up: “This platform is nearly 4 years one-time as well as y'all can’t betoken me to i unmarried killer app.” Mark should know, he created a well-reviewed Alexa game that lets users operate a fake lemonade stand.
Amazon says 4 out of v Alexa users receive got tried a science developed past times outsiders. Dave Limp, the senior vice president who oversees the Alexa as well as devices group, said final twelvemonth that music, for many, was the killer app.
So-called smart habitation skills that allow people usage Alexa phonation commands to command habitation appliances receive got also emerged equally a pop usage for the software. Many of those functions were built past times Amazon itself, or are modified versions of software other large companies, similar Spotify or streaming video providers, had already created.
Regardless of the road the Cupertino companionship mightiness take—and assuming we’ll eventually reckon downloadable HomePod apps—it’s going to receive got to figure out how to bargain amongst as well as solve the major app discoverability as well as visibility issues that Amazon is currently dealing with.
What exercise y'all think? How should Apple implement a HomePod store? How would y'all solve the app discoverability occupation assuming there’s no other interface for direct browsing a shop on the device other than Siri. And spell we’re at it, exercise nosotros demand HomePod apps at all?
Chime inwards amongst your thoughts inwards the comments downward below.
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