Oliver Haslam·

Apple “Currently Finalizing” Siri-Powered Amazon Echo Competitor

Apple is at the “currently finalizing” stage of preparations to launch its own Amazon Echo competitor, according to notorious leaker of Apple news and information Sonny Dickson.

While Dickson does not have a faultless record when it comes to his claims for what Apple will or will not do in the future, his claim that Apple is ready to enter a market that currently hosts Amazon and Google as its only real players may well have some weight to it.

While Dickson’s report, via Twitter, does not go into great detail, he did say that Apple’s new venture is “expected to be marketed as a Siri/AirPlay device,” while also including some sort of Beats technology. Amazon’s Echo device has been hugely popular in part thanks to its speaker system, which is capable of filling a room with audio without also filling it with ugly speakers.

Apple will want to do the same with its Echo competitor, and with Beats on board, it does stand a chance of offering audio quality on par with, or possibly exceeding, the current king of the hill.

One final tidbit from Dickson surrounds the unannounced device’s use of a flavor of iOS, although it is unlikely that this will be the iOS we are all so familiar with – unless this new device will also include a touchscreen for data input and interaction. Given the Amazon Echo and Google Home’s focus on voice control, and with Apple already having Siri across its own platforms, we doubt that will be the case at all.

AirPlay support as well as the aforementioned Siri are expected to be features the new device can boast, and while we do not know when the product will be announced, it is conceivable that this year’s WWDC event, to run between June 5th and June 9th, could see some mention of it at least.

(Source: Sonny Dickson [Twitter])

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