Choosing the Ideal Voice Assistant: A Comparative Review of Apple's HomePod and Amazon's Echo

Choosing the Ideal Voice Assistant: A Comparative Review of Apple’s HomePod and Amazon’s Echo

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Siri Speaker vs Amazon Echo: Will Apple HomePod Triumph Over Amazon Echo?

By Rico Rodriguez ｜Last updated on Apr 12, 2023

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017 released Homepod, which is really cute in person. Compared to the regular updates of OS and hardware devices, like upgrading to iOS 17 , new Macbooks and new 10.5-inch iPad Pro release, macOS 10.13 update , Apple’s voice controlled Siri speaker - Homepod is a big breakoff to be comparable enough with Amazon Echo, which has filled a large quota of the smart speakers. But Apple Siri speaker vs Amazon Echo, which is worthy your money better? Facing the fact that about 6 million Amazon Echo devices were sold by the end of 2016, Apple’s siri-enable speaker - Homepod is marching in this way, being a new rival of Alexa Echo.

Apple’s HomePod Basic Info & Key Features

HomePod is a powerful speaker that sounds amazing, adapts to wherever it’s playing, and together with Apple Music. All controlled through natural voice interaction with Siri. It takes the listening experience to a whole new level and sounds really good in its demos. To be specific:

It’s $349, in white and black, with Apple-designed A8 chip, high-excursion woofer, seamless mesh fabric, six-microphone array, seven-tweeter array.
Tune and better fill the room with sound based on the space it’s in.
It also has a “Musicologist” feature that works with Apple Music to stream the music you ask the speaker’s built-in siri to play.
You are enabled to ask more complex, music-related questions like ‘Who’s the drummer in this song?’, ‘What album came out on this 20 years ago?’
Homepod will integrate Siri in an Amazon Echo/Google Home-like use case, for example, turn off the light, set a timer, deliver the news etc.

Transfer Audio (eg. Voice Memo) Between iOS and Mac OS

MacX MediaTrans, as an excellent iOS transfer, allowing you to transfer kinds of audio files, such as the Siri speaker made voice memo, downloaded podcast, ringtone etc. between iPhone iPad iPod and Macbook, Macbook Pro/Air, iMac etc.

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Part 1: Siri Speaker vs Amazon Echo: What Siri Speaker is Expected?

Amazon billed the Echo as a speaker that, by the way, has a few smart voice commands built in and added more capabilities by and by. Alexa now boasts thousands of “skills” that allow it to connect with apps like Uber and Twitter, or Nest thermostats. Suddenly, Echo went from a novelty to a whole ecosystem unto itself. On the contrary, Apple’s current Siri seems quite weak, featured with answering funny Siri questions, playing a song, creating a reminder or doing limited things. So, to make Siri-speaker Homepod stand out in Siri speaker vs Alexa Echo comparison, some features are expected both by average users and experts:

#1 Calling. Apple’s competitors have calling features. And Siri speaker better has this. It can ties into FaceTime audio or leverage a connection to iPhone.
#2 Able to be a router. A smart speaker is fine and good. However, why not add router functionality into a Siri speaker? Think it like a Google wi-fi, where each device connects to each other to bring better wi-fi. What better reason to buy a bunch of new speakers. Mesh networking.
#3 Smarten up Siri. The current Siri will not go to work if that’s what installed on a speaker, even pop-up Siri before considering a speaker that uses Siri.
#4 Recognition. Amazon Echo and Google Home can recognize different users by voice. A Siri speaker would need a similar hook. As the latest iPhone 8 rumor that it might be embedded with Apple Neural Engine AI processor, which will allow for much improved facial and speech recognition applications. Siri speakers recognition is likely to happen. Maybe the Homepod does the trick by voice, or add in a camera so it can tell who you are.
#5 Full Apple TV integration. Siri speaker vs Amazon Echo, the later one is getting some new features soon. One of them is displaying infomation on Amazon Fire TV. Apple should make sure any speaker it introduces work really well with its Apple TV. The speaker should also be fully duplicate any function that is possible will apple Siri remote.

Part 2: Homepod Speaker vs Alexa Echo: Apple Homepod Speaker Advantages

To compare Apple Homepod speaker and Alexa Echo, you might get the impression Siri is a bit behind, mainly because Amazon Echo is doing well as the first real standalone speaker product for a personal assistant. But with what’s rumored to be in store for iPhone 8 from good sources, I think Siri and Apple’s standalone Siri speaker product will have some big advantages.

1. Multi-language support

The latest reports claim the secretive Homepod speaker product is far along enough to be in prototype testing after a couple of years of development and will likely debut this year. And Apple’s Siri speaker advantage vs Amazon Echo is multi-lanuage support. It already supports a long list of languages and region-specific accents and data, something Amazon and Google are way behind on. As you may know, Alexa speaks English and German with varying support for features, Google Home/Assistant speaks only English. Siri, on the other hand, speaks over 20 languages with localized accents for many and support for all the big markets including English, French, Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese and many more.

siri speaker advantages

2. HomeKit

Compared with Amazon Echo, Siri-enabled speaker - Homepod can be relevant to HomeKit accessories. Ask Siri to turn off the lights from your iPhone. See who’s at the front door on your iPad. And even control things remotely with the help of Apple TV. And Apple has expanded with support for new types of accessories and features each year at WWDC, and I’d expect this year will be the same. In Siri speaker vs Amazon Echo comparison, Siri has already a step ahead of the competition with HomeKit. And all these will make for a ton of possibilities at launch for a Siri speaker on iOS 17 iPhone 8 or macOS 10.13 Mac.

Watch Movies on Apple TV

siri speaker vs amazon echo

3. AR/Camera features – Facial recognition – Apple TV

Meanwhile, Apple is also said to be working on facial recognition features for the Siri speaker, which means it could have a camera and that would allow for many features the current assistant speakers don’t have, for example, intelligent multi-user support. Unlike the Alexa Echo, Siri speaker, with a facial recognition functioned camera attached in your living room, perhaps also connected to an Apple TV, a whole new category of app possibilities will emerge. Apple TV apps could tap into the Homepod speaker’s camera to maximize theApple TV advantages , for example, giving Apple TV apps a camera for things like video chat, security, gaming and AR applications. With all the recent reports, it’s looking like AR is going to be a big part of the iPhone 8, so we know it’s likely on Apple’s radar for a Siri speaker too.

Siri speaker recognition

4. Apps/SiriKit

Last year’s Siri updates were notable. Siri is available after you upgrade to macOS 10.12 , and it finally gained the ability to integrate with third-party apps with a Siri SDK. So far the app support is limited to a handful of categories like messaging, payments, VoIP calling, and ride booking. However, the Siri speaker advantage lies in a few more app categories for the SDK could get added at WWDC. Especially for third-party music, video and podcast apps could make Siri much more powerful. Either way, what Siri speaker surpasses Amazon Echo is that SiriKit has already prepared developers well ahead of time, which means lots of apps will already support Siri features by the time a Homepod speaker rolls around likely later in the year.

Siri speaker Apps/SiriKit update

Part 3: Apple Homepod Speaker vs Amazon Echo: What You Can Do with Amazon Echo?

The Amazon Echo is essentially an intelligent bluetooth speaker, filling the room with immersive, 360 omni-directional audio. Throughout the comparison of voice controlled speakers, such as Siri speakers vs Amazon Echo, Google Home vs Amazon, iPhone 8 Siri vs Galaxy S8 Bixby etc., Amazon Echo advantages are notable, allowing you get a lot done in daily. For example:

Stream songs from Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn or whatever you’ve got playing on your phone, tablet or laptop via Bluetooth.
Answer questions, read audiobooks and news, report traffic and weather, give info on local businesses, provide sports scores/schedules, all using the Alexa Voice Service
Ability to control lights, switches, and thermostats
Constantly getting smarter and adding new features and skills - over 100 have been added since launch, including ordering Domino pizzas and booking Uber services
The Echo comes with the optional remote control to control the volume or speak commands. It works well from a good distance at 20-30 ft.
Great tool for handicapped persons, such as making doctor appointments, telling the time, making phone calls and fetching the weather report
Multi-users support, easily recognizing different voices specific to each of your family members. Unbelievably quick, accurate, and responsive.
The Echo allows you to start and stop timers and alarms.
…

Amazon Echo advantages

Part 4: Apple Homepod vs Amazon Echo Features Comparison

Apple Homepod	Amazon Echo
Assistant	Siri	Alexa
Music support	Apple Music	Amazon Music, Prime Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Spotify Premium, Pandora, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Audible
Multi-room	Yes, with Airplay 2	Not currently
Smart Home & third-party support	HomeKit only	Yes
Microphones	6 far-field + 1 low-frequency calibration microphone	7 far-field
Speakers	7x tweeter + woofer	2.0-inch tweeter + 2.5-inch woofer
Connectivity	Wi-Fi (Bluetooth currently unknown)	Bluetooth & Wi-Fi
Dimensions and weight	172 x 142 mm; 5.5lbs	235 x 84 mm; 2.34lbs
Price	$349	$180

Part 5: The Bottom Line

Of course, Homepod speaker vs Alexa Echo, Echo is a nice choice as a voice assistant in daily. But will Homepod speaker triumph over Amazon Echo? It depends on your specific usage to pick a suitable voice controlled speaker. If you are a musicomania, Apple Homepod absolutely a nice choice since it sounds good in its demos. And HomePod is a key part of an incredibly deep and intuitive music ecosystem that lives everywhere you do. With Siri intelligence and access to virtually all the world’s recordings, it’s like having a musicologist who helps you discover every song you’d ever want to hear. Not to mention its clear advantages in some aspects such as an already robust and quickly growing home automation accessory ecosystem with HomeKit, multi-language support, and Apple TV apps.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rico Rodriguez

Rico has been fascinated with mobile technology for as long as he can remember. He is keen to share his experiences to those who get stuck in data transfer for both iOS and Android users. Besides his regular passion related to mobile data management, he also enjoys reading books, playing games and occasionally watching Marvel inspired movies.

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