Great points:

• More positively, Echo is meaningful because it’s also the first hugely popular smart device that’s connected to a place rather than a person. (Video game consoles are obviously dedicated to the living room, too, but they’re a purpose-specific device, and none have crossed over into general app platforms.) Apps for places are different than apps for people. This is summarized very well in naveen’s piece on “thereables”.

Also an excellent point:

• It’s striking how Siri is much worse than Alexa. (Even U is better.) It could just be a feature lag, that Amazon is ahead on product development, or it could be that Apple’s laudable privacy stance has meaningfully disadvantaged them in this product category because they haven’t mined enough personal user data to provide a comparable experience. Hmm!

Matt Haughey asks what Echo is useful for:

https://twitter.com/mathowie/status/745706304790880256

Meanwhile Google is working on cleaning robots:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-wonders-how-to-build-a-cleaning-robot-that-doesnt-destroy-things-in-its-path/