[Njtechdiv] Apple's rival to Echo and Home

[Mario]

since there are a few Apple users:

Apple reportedly working on a rival to Amazon's Echo
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/24/apple-reportedly-working-on-a-rival-to-amazons-echo/

by Nicole Lee,
Personal Computing

While much of Silicon Valley has been duking it out with each other in 
the artificial intelligence wars, Apple has been strangely silent. But 
it might not be for much longer.

The Information has just reported that Apple is working on two bold new 
moves to broaden its AI strategy. First, the Cupertino firm will 
supposedly open up Siri to third-party developers, so that the voice 
assistant can be used with anyone's apps, not just Apple's own. More 
interestingly, however, Apple is also apparently working on a smart 
Bluetooth speaker not unlike Amazon's Echo  or Google Home.
It'll have a microphone and is supposedly Siri-powered, so you'd be able 
to use it to turn on music, get headlines or do a variety of other 
tasks, like turning on the lights. According to a source for The 
Information, Apple has been working on this device long before the Echo 
launched last year.

Artificial intelligence has been a focus for Apple's rivals for quite 
awhile now; Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Microsoft have invested 
heavily in AI to improve the quality of digital assistants (which are 
sometimes referred to as bots). Siri, on the other hand, has remained 
fairly stagnant and limited in scope when compared to the competition. 
There's no official word from Apple on how much more it plans to invest 
in AI, but we're betting we'll hear more about it at Apple's WWDC event 
in a couple of weeks.