In the wake of new iPhones and Apple cleverly making the lower end smartphone the normal (iPhone 11) and the higher end smart phone the premium (iPhone 11 Pro), Amazon shows off its product strategy which is significantly different.
Unlike Apple taking a strong point of view and shipping one or two variations of a product, just this week Amazon unveiled countless Echo variations. It feels like they came up with a bunch of ideas and decided to ship them all to see what works best in the hands of the consumer.
From a high end Echo Studio speaker, to a redesigned Echo, an Echo Dot with a clock, an Echo glow light, and an Echo with a screen, you sure have plenty of options for how to get in touch with Alexa. These are all degrees of a plugged in smart speakers, but Amazon also launched glasses, ear buds and a ring.
Glasses that connect you with Alexa, a ring you can whisper to Alexa and ear buds that function like airpods. All interesting products that may find an audience in the real world.
The big questions for me are:
1. How many people want something listening in their homes / on their bodies at all times? Maybe this is normal now, but to me it’s still weird. I got rid of the echo in my home because it didn’t add enough value to justify the thought of something hearing everything said in my home.
2. How well can Amazon integrate with iOS? It feels like at any point Apple could get stricter and the whole thing would fall apart. It’s certainly interesting to see so many cool products, but in some ways it almost feels like R&D for Apple. I can’t see any product providing that strong of an experience if you don’t own the ecosystem where everything important lives (your iPhone). At some point, Apple learns from Amazons successes and failures, changes the OS rules, and launches its own version of the things worth launching.
Amazon is a scary behemoth that owns large portions of our mindshare. If you are a Whole-foods shopping, Prime member who has an Echo in your home, Amazon is already touching much of your daily experience. (Not to mention if you have an Amazon credit card). But I’m not sure where it goes from here. I can’t see a phone working. Maybe they go after the low-end and move toward the Amazon Basics-ification of everything?
Curious to hear more informed takes on what all these products mean. From my view, it looks they went for it, made some cool stuff and flexed on smaller consumer tech companies by launching more products in one day than most will launch in a few years.