Alexa at 10: Amazon's assistant is a winner and a failure
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Welcome with the verge cast the flagship podcast of far field microphones I my friend day appears and I am sitting here updating maybe this single most important list in my life. I'm a person who thinks in lists if you haven't figured that out from listening to the show in recent years, I have a list of all of the stuff that I have to do. I have list for all of my, like, frequent flare account.

Everything is bullets point to, everything is list. It's just how my brain works. But the list that is the most important to me is what i've been keeping for the last several years, and it's called how to be a grown up.

So i'm sure i've complaining about this on the show before, but they never tell you when you're a kid that being an adult is just like a series of small maintenance tasks. And one of them were very hard, but they're impossible to remember to do. And because you don't do them, things break horribly.

So over the years, as i've discovered each of these tasks, i've added IT to the list and i've added reminders so that now, at nervous every three months, let's say, I get one that's like, hey, change the air filter in the furnace so that the area is discussing in your house. And all of these tasks are like quick and simple. It's just remembering to do them or even that there are a thing you're supposed to do is the problem.

The most recent one, by the way, is, uh, remember to change the air filter on the d humid fire that I put in the laundry y room because the large room stinks because of all the moisture, like there are like eight grown up tasks that backed all the way into change the air filter. So now every couple of months I have a task that is going to remind me to change the air filter, or at least just like hose IT down so that the laundry room doesn't stink. This is being an adult.

It's not that much fun. But here we are. Anyway, we are not here to talk about lists or dehumidifiers.

We are here to talk about alex. a. So this week, wednesday specifically, is the ten year anniversary of the very first amazon eo.

You might remember the one kind of like a can of tennis balls, or like a pringles can. IT had the blue ring and had the far field microphone in a surprising way. IT was like a fully formed vision for a new way of computing.

And ten years later, in a strange way, I think IT has actually been both more and less transformative than we might have expected. And so we're going to spend the whole hour with genta talking through all of that. How far have we gotten? Where is left to go? Is this actually the right path for the future of computing?

Alex, I got a lot of people excited. Google with google assistant has made huge moves towards the same kind of thing siri was around before alexa, but has changed a lot because of alexa, I think. And now with A I, we have this giant push towards something very similar.

And so the question, as always, is, is this what we want? Is this the right answer? And what can we learn from the first ten years of aleta about what it'll take to get there? We're gone to get to all of that.

But I should just warn you before we start turn off your lexi devices, i'm sure i've set them off several times already. And for that, i'm very sorry, but we are going to say that word so so so many times in the next hour, go on a walk, put on headphones. I don't know, they put pillows around you to the earn, just a little fort.

Where is you in the verda? Ast, do you have to do but turning the speakers off because others SE, it's it's going to get rough out there. I have also set mine off two times since i've been sitting here.

We're going to get get to our together friends. All that is coming up in just a second. But first, literally, I have to go turn off thirty or forty devices or all.

This is onna. Get really, really, really messy. This is the verge cast over right back.

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Welcome back. Alright, let's just get into a excess stuff. But before we do, let me just really quickly set the scene.

So it's november six of twenty fourteen, ten years ago this wednesday, the verge that com is a website were like three years old and all of a sudden amazon just drops this thing on its website. It's IT was in the morning of that day and I just appeared. Let me just read you the headline from our story.

This is eleven fifty six A M on november six, twenty fourteen. It's by Chris welsh, and I love this headline very much. IT says amazon, just surprise everyone with a crazy speaker that talks to kind of tells everything you need to know, right? The thing was called echo.

IT was Priced at one hundred ninety nine dollars. You could buy one for ninety nine dollars if you a prime member and if you got an invite. IT was a very odd thing. We'd never really seen anything like this before.

And going back and reading over those early days, it's very funny to see the reaction to the instincts that IT was like, why does this exist? What is he going to be for? Why do I have this? And the big idea for amazon was not voice assistance in general, but that IT could be a different, finite, physical thing, that I could be a piece of furniture in your house, and that might change how you use IT.

I think that kind of a worked amazon was right about a lot of things, but I was also wrong about a lot of things. And I think if you review ten years, a lot has changed and also nothing has changed anyway, we have lost to cover and there's also maybe, maybe some huge election news coming for us that might change the next decade for this too. Lots to get to.

We're doing this for the whole show. Let just get into IT gentoo. Hello.

hi David Harry daring.

i'm good. I I have a sick child, so I haven't left my house in several days or slept in several days, so not a hundred percent where I am or what's going on put, it's very good. I like delicious.

David IT could be really fun.

This might be the longest verge cast in history. It's very possible. Um I I take no responsibility for anything I say the course of this segment O, K, I should just say that the beginning of every verge cast actually that would be like the legal disclaimer like this, is all based on fictional people and characters not real.

Um okay. So here to talk about elexa because I guess alex a is ten. I was trying to think back to this and like what was the beginning relax up because if if I remember correctly, ten years ago alexa started in a deeply strange way.

Yes, IT really was a very interesting launch, I think very much influenced by the spectacular lar failure of the fire phone a few months prior.

Was that really only a few .

months before happened just prior? And I think I actually wasn't deeply detect journalism at the time, but I I remember some of this. I mean, you reviewed the original echo, so you were right in the midst s of all of this.

But looking back at doing some research over the last few weeks, basically it's sounded like amazon had this really quite impressive new technical, they were looking today you, but they were so burned by how badly the fire phone went down and that they sort of stuff launched the the new voice system elea, which came in the new echo smart speaker. And this was the first consumer smart speaker that anyone had seen IT just dropped with, I think, just depressed release in a video. And there was a lot of reporting like, wow, where did this come from? This, a set of stealth launch, and IT was announced.

As there you know, this was a smart speaker that you could talk to control with your voice. It's had sort of a few key experiences at the start, which was playing music, answering questions from wikipedia and IT was you know, IT was a really exciting idea and the tech press was very in a very into a lots of, oh my gonna, what's amazon done here? And you know where where is this gonna go? And there was a lot of excitement, but you could actually get one.

And I think they didn't even send that review units. This was how how much they were, you know, learned from their previous mistakes. And I think credit me from wrong, the verge, jack, he went out board one in order to get to review IT. And this was and you had to get on a weight list, which is something that amazon's done subsequently with their sort of day one edition products that don't necessarily have very clear use case yet. And they are kind of putting that out there to sort of law where the community might might take IT.

And that was very much what echo and elea launched as as a sort of experiment, although, you know, they revealed later that they had been spending years working on this technologies, particular the far field microphones, which gave you this really cool new ability to be able to talk to a voice assistance from anywhere in the room and not be tied to a computer or a phone. And privately, you know, the ambition that they revealed later was this would be a kin to start trex computer, and all knowing, ever present computer that can know what you want, do anything you ask IT to, and you can converse with a natural language and do anything, control your lights, destroy your enemies, put up your shields. But you know, you get.

you get the idea, small ambitions, really super, super chill idea from amazon at the time.

So really was exciting technology. So yeah, IT IT came out twenty fourteen, november six, was when they announced IT. I think you could start to buy IT within a few months.

I believe the first review unit you reviewed with january time, no IT wasn't until spring of twenty fifteen that regular people could buy IT. And then IT finally went on general sale. You didn't have to sign up in. I think IT was july of twenty fifteen, and I got mine under the Christmas tree I put in on my Christmas list. My husband got IT for me and he he presented to me Christmas morning, said, I have no idea what this is, why you want IT, but IT was on your list.

You ve got the original tennis .

book in the original tennis ball. Yes.

I still have mind around here somewhere. I and I assume this still works.

Mind does minds in my husband's garage and uses IT for music and IT works. IT works brilliant. And so, you know, the same time for Christmas, I got him something of his list.

I had no idea what I was either at something called a crew pocket hole. gic. I don't know if that you have any idea.

No, that sounds like something you can't legally say on a pocket. We're going to do for that now.

Yeah, so, you know, this is a small peek into the two households there. But yes, IT was very funny. You mean these two very different gadgets? What a pocket hoji does, I found out, is helped make holes in wood so you can build furniture. And in fact, he built a piece of furniture and podcasting from right now with that. So that's a nice full circle.

The Christmas in the two household, that's one fifteen. So what wild about that is, uh, A U just rod, a lunch of really awful memories of trying to wrangle an echo to review.

Thank you for that. I want to hear that story.

So I think that the two hardest times i've ever worked for a review unit of something where the the original snaps spectacle les, uh, which I drove two and a half hours to a vending machine in big sir, and got there right after they sold out the last one. So I bought them from a stranger for six hundred dollars. Now is how I got snaps practical the first time I literally scalped snaps practical.

And then the amount of time that I spent trying to convince some of the amazon to send me an echo, I mean, months of being like, I don't I don't know how to be clear about this. We would like to review. Can I have one pleas to review? And they were just like and so we just we just bought and review IT and I had forgotten the context they were launching this thing into because IT is really funny to look back, especially with how important alexa really quickly became.

I think it's very telling that I went from A A secret launch to under your Christmas tree in twelve months IT. Once IT happened. IT happened really .

IT is the way .

that IT happened. I could never tell if amazon just wasn't sure if IT was anything or was desperately afraid IT was fired. Phone two point out.

And I think you're probably right that they were afraid that was fired. Phone two point out because, like you said, IT has also come out since then. This is a thing theyve been working on forever.

Jeff bazas was very behind IT and very excited about IT and had big ideas about IT. They were just terrified IT wasn't gonna go. Well, I guess yeah and this was before amazon was just in fall on like yolo hardware mood.

We're just going to try stuff. And who cares if IT as well, like he was a big bet that they kind of didn't want you to think was a big bed? Yes, yes.

I mean, I was almost sort of like a you know as IT like a test gadgets like or maybe even if a developer gadgets because of, you know, that's what they pushed really hard with developers developing skills for elea to give IT more capabilities. And that's something they've done. They've followed through on in the ten years we've had the echo devices.

You it's not a locked down propriety device that he knows trying to lock you into. So all of my devices in my office are not designed to respond, but unfortunately, the devices in my living room give me one second. Yeah, again, elea turn on.

Do not distin. Sorry about that. I think i've got them all. So IT wasn't locked down.

Proprietary device designed to sort of keep you in amazon's ecosystem, you say like an iphone was at the time. IT really was a sort of let's see what this can do. And you know they deep they had software development kits.

They even had far phone, far field microphone kit. They they allowed other manufacturer to put the technology into their devices. IT really was sort of like, let's see what we can do with this new technology, which was exciting. IT was very exciting time.

I think, and IT worked really well. Like I went back and read my review from january of twenty fifteen. And on the one hand, I had a bunch of issues using the thing, but on the other hand, I still have all the same issues ten years later, which will get to.

But I think the extent to which. Amazon made sort of a small number of promises about what this thing was gonna really good at and was basically one hundred percent correct. Yeah, is really kind of incredible.

They're like, you're going to use this thing for music. You're going to use IT for basic informational look ups. You're going to use IT to set time as you're going to use IT to convert you know gram sounds and like check, check and check. They they like really understood what the thing was for from the very beginning in a way that I had forgotten how correct they they really were.

They were, but I agree. And you know, I did have in those early days, IT was a big success. You know, I think within the first two years, they'd sold five million devices, as the report said, in which, I mean, it's not iphone, but you know it's still it's impressive for a brand .

new piece of technology. Yeah, I think it's easy. It's easy to forget now. But like smart speaker was not a thing that existed before. Nobody even knew how that why you would want this in your house or what I would do. And the I I don't know if you remember the moment, but I do of like walking in and the the moment where are just like play, you know, play whatever, not play beyond play us and IT just does know all the center go. I want everything to work like that and like, so IT doesn't. But there were even that the very beinin, they were just enough for those moments that I was like, as soon as you were in a room with an echo, you kind of got IT and idea like IT was there was like a really cool value to that thing at the very beginning that was very powerful.

Yeah and what for me as as someone who was really just getting into as set into sort of tech journalism, but has always been a tech hobby, st. IT was a great IT was a real revelation to bring this type of technology into my home is supposed to being in my hand or on my lap or on my desktop, especially for my family. I mean, my kids were very Young.

They say, I mean, I think my son was three when or three or four, and my daughter was maybe two. And you know, we were IT was great to be able to just call out and, you know, play beyond saying and have a dance party and tell stories and jokes. And IT really IT helped bring technology into a much more usable space in our homes.

And know I even at that age, at that year, in that time, I was feeling that sort of parent guilt have been on devices. And but but there's so much still that's great about technology for being apparent. You playing music and reading audio books are things that we, you know, I I wanted to do with my kids, but I didn't want have to pull out my phone to do IT.

So IT really opened that sort of accessibility to technology in the home. And that and I felt like there was so much potential and so much that was exciting at the time. But I also felt like we never really went that far beyond.

And we did get a lot of promises from not maybe not promises might be too stronger word, but a lot of very strong indications from amazon's and jeff basis. And and you've limped the devices and services head at the time that this was going to be so much more. This was going to be the star rec computer or this, that was what they were working towards.

And IT has been really interesting to kind of sea that they have not got there and that we do use elea today very much. And I was when I was sort of going back through the research here, I looked at my list of what I asked my device to do today. This is what I did, you know, five years ago or seven years ago.

And IT really hasn't changed that much. And that that sort of key difference feels like a big failure. And i'll tell you the reason why is because it's just not that reliable is you know the long in the short of IT. And this is something i've seen.

You know, I I mean many user groups, facebook groups, discords, reddit forms where people who use echo and elea complain or praise or discuss the device and and the assistant and IT just seems like there's a universal consensus that IT can hit a plato and I can still mostly do those basic things. But there really hasn't been that next exciting use case, that next exciting development for the technology. There's really interesting news cases specially and accessibility and elder care where you they're valuable use cases.

People being able to know who have an accessibility chAllenges, be able to know open your shades or turn your lights on enough, be able to we've got we had a we've written have written a number of pieces about using amazon devices to look after elderly parents. There's so many key use cases, but they are solving specific problems. That ultimate idea of this ambient voice assistant that can manage your home, that can be like computer in star track and be this of ominous ent omi present artificial intelligence, hasn't arrived.

Maybe a lot of people don't want IT, but I do. And I was excited to see that calm. And I feel like we just almost feel like further away from that. Then we were um a lot of problems I encounter when using x in my home is is not doing what I expected to do if I ve set up a sort of a more complicated routine that i've tried to get IT to do things like lock my back door, just my famous start.

Turn the lights off, dim them in this room, you turn the T V on all, you know, multiple different things at once, which is now one of the sort of core use cases now of the smart home side of elexa. Nine times I have tended something doesn't work, or IT doesn't hear me correctly, and IT does something differently from what i've asked IT to do. And so that happens, that happens to me so often that I have basically got to the point now where all I use IT for is to turn lights on enough, other than most core use cases, of playing music and setting time, as which I think everyone can agree and like is great.

that it's very good at IT. Well, and I think I think that that's kind of the key open question for me with a lot of this stuff is who and what is to blame for that fact? Because I actually think there are a bunch of possibilities, right? There's there's one world in which you say, okay, amazon just didn't do IT right like you could have as a sort of failure of technology.

The far future microphone is work, the natural language processing, whatever cards on the table actually don't think it's that one. But I would be curious to know if you do, uh, there's a version of IT that has it's kind of an ecosystem problem that actually what happened is there's just not enough stuff that is even theoretically able to do the the problem with building a starter. Computers like the starter computer can do an awful a lot of stuff and you have to build all that stuff and they never did.

Uh and then there's a third thing that, that basically says, like maybe this just isn't the right interface to do all of that stuff. And I think there might even be other possibilities. But I keep coming back to you like I agree that we didn't get the starter computer.

Really, I think everyone agrees is we didn't get the startup a computer, but why didn't we the longer we go, the more complicated that question becomes to me. Uh, and I know you thought a lot about this research, a lot about IT. Like do you do you have a thing over the decade of election you can pin point to me like this is where we can to lost the thread.

Yeah, I think capitalism. I think alex and echo started out as a you know a very ambitious, exciting new technology. And then amazon was like, oh, wow, we've thought we've sold five million of these in two years. Let's make hundreds more of shapes and sizes that put IT in a ring. It's put IT in earbuds as put IT in cars.

Let's let's make small ones, fat ones, short ones, tall ones, ones with screens and they I think the company focused far too much time developing new killing more ego devices um when they didn't work, try to span the technology into every corner of our lives, having encouraging other companies to make alexa powered speakers and devices, putting in a microwaves and clocks and A A lot of energy on that, not ough energy on actually developing the core technology. And i'm not an engineer and as you say, I I think that has been a chAllenge that whether the technologies is actually at the point where we could have had a Better elea sooner than today or a few years time, but that doesn't mean IT couldn't have got Better incrementally. And there have been there's a many more capabilities of the voice stand today.

Then there was when I started. But the interface, which you eluded to, is the problem there. There are so many things that can do, maybe not very many things you want IT to do, but there are many, many things you can do.

You know, fat jokes is the obvious one. Lots of, lots of great comedic and entertainment things, not as so many useful things. Like you want an when you think of an assistant, I want an assistant to you, order me a pizza, or I want an assistant to plan my day for me, those types of things never got Better.

You can connect your google account, google calendar to IT, or you could set up, you know, your photos through amazon photos. But they are just want very many core good use cases that mean I need to use this device every day. IT was it's been very much it's fun to use this device, but there was no kind of breakthrough.

This is why I have to have this device in my home other than some of those more niches cases we discuss earlier. And I I feel like amy name is on the hardware company, although IT started out as a website that really has become a hardware company yeah every I mean there's you know verge law and tech journalist law. When you go to an amazon event, one of their full hardware events, you were prepared to write up seventy five new gadgets in thirty minutes was IT?

Was IT twenty eighteen the year that he was? Just seven hundred thousand new like they got is all at once. That was the year of the clock in the microwave, right? Yeah, anything that exists in your house now IT has a yeah, do you want that doesn't matter. You have a now was I was the pitch.

but I could I mean, I can see the value there, like connect all the things and then elea can do everything you wanted to do. But IT was the getting aleta to do everything you wanted to do, part that they never may Better. You had to use the election. APP, which is one of is probably the single worst piece of smart himsilf are I have ever used. IT has incrementally got Better, but IT is still really difficult.

It's night and day Better than IT was even a few years ago, and it's still pretty. You like it's it's rough and they've .

tried to address that. Now they have came out with the new echo hubs so you have an interface that you can use. But then IT was, the voice interface is what needed to get Better.

The voice interface needed to be, we needed be able to talk to a voice assistant in the way you can talk to a struck or not you can but be car could talk to star tracks computer. Just say what you're thinking, say what you want to happen. And I do IT for you, I understand, and be able to do IT for you.

And we've never got anywhere closer. Ex has never understood Better what you want. And then he did on day one that never got Better.

which I I think is that I think that's the perfect way to put IT because one of the things I was enjoy about using a lexi, just from a heart of lake perverse, doing technology science work, uh, is you go in and you look at something that went wrong.

And just, the question is always like, did IT misunderstand me? And actually I very rarely does, at least in my case, uh, I go in and IT like, I can say, even very complicated long, you know, multiple d long sentence things. Its transcription is very good and and its its natural language processing is very good.

And so it's like IT knows what I want. That is not the chAllenge. And you could think that yelling at a speaker from across the room would be a hard problem. And and IT is but actually again, from pretty close to the very beginning, amazon more or less solve that problem. Yeah ah there's somewhere after that first step of like I have declared my intention to my device and my device has registered that intention correctly and that IT falls apart and IT has never that part like your thing has never gotten, I would say, even meaningly Better, much less very good.

No, I agree. And that's where the star trek computer idea came in. You know that this device could sort of manage your home for you. I mean, alexa leaned hard into the smart home as soon as they realized that this was a great use case of voice control you know even though IT wasn't part of the initial plan um but to begin with, IT was incredibly clunk y and you know I have spent the last eight years trying to use elea to run my smart home smoothly.

And my sort of touch point throughout this time has been like a good morning routine like this is what you always hear about when you talk about voice control and smart home is like you can set up this good morning routine, good night routine. I'm leaving routine, and your whole home will just work magically. And I, from the days of wink, remember wink, that was one of the .

first I try to remember.

that was one of the first smart hum hubs that worked with elea. And you used to have to say, trigger, my good morning routine. And my husband still says, trigger, every time he asks, selected to do something. Oh, my godness.

This is good. Relieving all of these in this is, this is the point, people.

This is my alexa. Do not disturb. See this IT never gets right. But yes, so and over the years, I have tried to use, as had been my touch point, like whether we have reached a sort of magical moment where the smart home just works. And you know, this kind of goes back circles back to start track with, you know, I think the informal line, and I can deliver IT in an english accent, and I will do my best computer. T, L, gray, hot.

I was good.

and I didn't do a good because d sorry, I have to get my shakes back on foot.

I proved.

but yes, you know, so. And for me, IT was coffee black, strong? And I wanted, I wanted to get out of my bed. I wanted the lights to turn on. I wanted B, B, C, radio two to start playing.

I, one of the coffee to start reading, maybe no, my shower to start running, famous at to adjust, and then say, twenty minutes later, the kid's lights in their room go on, their alarm goes off, fine h things that I would have to go and do manually myself. But having a smart home assistant to all of this for me, save me time in the morning, make me less dressed, make everyone happy. And so the first problem I came across was a personal one, but one that really kind of goes to another way area, wear the smart home in general.

And alexa hasn't succeeded, which is context. So my husband has been, for most of his career, a shift worker. So he worked twenty four hour shifts, and then he would come home and sleep for twelve hours.

So for me, having a motion sensor or using voice to start my morning routine was not gonna because I would wake him up. And also I only wanted the bedroom lights to turn on when he wasn't there, not when he was there. So there was there's nothing that likes I could do to different shape, didn't have the context of what was happening in in the room.

Then the other issue was trying to use a motion sensor to trigger routine, if something you've only really been able to do in the last couple of years. Motion sensing support for elea was really spotty for years. IT worked through zig b initially, but nine tends out of ten as zig.

By emotion sense, you connected to echo would either knock stay connected or wouldn't work. Yeah and again, maybe no amazon's problem. But you know, when you're connecting to different ecosystems, you need your smart assistant to be able to trouble shit these things for you.

You don't have to spend three hours a week trouble shooting your smart home to get these things to work. And then the fresh brewed coffee, this is a capability that we should have had years ago. You can rig up a smart plug if you have the right type of coffee machine that has a physical on off switch or you have a smart elea connected coffee machine that on average costs between one and two thousand dollars.

There's one from spin and then there's one recently from bosh. Just this, just so much friction. So you are testing the bush coffee maker. And in theory, IT should make me a latte when I say good morning. But OK I spent in preparation for, when I was sort of research of this, I spent about four hours trying to get IT .

to work this. This is be like t EXO.

Calculus that has never tip in alexa favor, right? You can, a lot of what you just describe, you can, in theory, right, set up, right? Like the the one of the things that amazon has tried to do to its credit is enable some of this stuff, right? And yes, I get a lot of crap on the show for uh, hating apple shortcuts because IT gives you a lot of power but IT is essentially a like really complicated scripting language.

Uh and so sure right? If you are willing to do the work to learn all of that great, the problem is then you've spent a bunch money you have done is hard to work, uh, IT doesn't work all the time. And then now i'm doing a bunch maintenance.

And so at each step along the way, you've lost a significant part of what makes this thing compelling in the first place. And now you're just doing you you're like doing a bit trying to get elected to work, right? IT feels cool. But it's not actually less work.

work. And so you .

get to a point where the the math of how much time am I spending to make coffee every morning just doesn't tip in lexus favor. And it's true with so many things and that, that has always been the thing for me that is like, yeah, I could make the good morning routine work, but I would only work hf the time and i'm going to go have to fix all the things that doesn't get right every morning and it's just not i'll just walk into the room and channel at on that works.

H David, work, working my heart.

No, but and IT kills me too, because I want all that work. And like once a year, I go through the work of setting all this stuff up again. And then the third time in a row, IT doesn't work on my god, every mind, and I just tired .

a lot of the wall again or IT works. But there's one thing actually that you you'd forgot that you don't want IT to do that one time like your sun sleeping and they don't have school that day, but IT still turns a light on in their room, you know. So again, that was back to the context, you know, if IT needs to know more about your your home and be more intelligent and not just command and control.

uh, that is actually a perfect segway into all of where this stuff is headed, uh, which I think were ten years in. And we're kind of, at the beginning of maybe the next decade, new things on this front where can take a really quick break you sick around and talk to me about all that after.

of course, I will be right here.

Are you good? Be right that.

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Alright, we're back. Jen tu is still here. Her, jen, hi, I just like tell you that alex a this is for is delightful. Uh, I have been on the hill of voice assistance will change everything for a very long time and I have mostly been wrong. Ah so let's talk about the ways the future might prove me and you right.

A one day yeah.

because a long do we get three, ten more years? I think the first decade, not so much for us. decade? Number two.

maybe we were in that hard.

maybe uh, so let's of where we are at this moment, both in terms of what elexa is and kind of what we know about where it's about to go. And I think uh you I think relatively recently got to go see some version of like the the perfect like platonic ideal of the alex a system, right, that like amazon's fever dream .

of what your house might look like. Yes, I did. I went for a tour of amazon smart home lab, which is in the seattle headquarters.

And I I was excited when they suggested the idea and they said, no, we can show you everything we have set up. And it's sort of like an idealistic like this is what the sort of ultimate elea powered ambient smart home looks like. You know, everything is connected and set up, and you just need to say a few words.

I was hoping for a bit more motion sense in action, like ambient action. But this this was kind of like their ideal. So I was expecting, honestly, to be kind of blown away. yeah. I mean.

if everyone is going to feel like magic, IT should be, yes, literally, amazon, with infinite resources and all of the people who made thing at its disposal, yes, should be able to make you feel like magic.

They should not .

not looking forward to where we head IT here.

Yeah, I was i'm going to say IT IT was very disapointment.

So.

very nice apartment, beautiful views. Sunny day too. See apple go. 嗯。 But IT was pedestrian. You know, they had everything, they in hundreds of devices that could work with the voice assistant, echo devices everywhere, robot vacuum ring devices, fire tvs, and then lots of third party things. But they they had, like leur on catheter lites, had switch bot robot fingers, tons of fun gadgets. But ultimately, IT was all still command and control.

And you know, as we talked about and amazon has said, along with, in the same breath of this, our aspiration as the start ric computer, our aspiration is an ambient, smart home, a sort of a home that responds to you proactively without you having to do anything or do something very minimal. Just say a few words, or maybe press a button and what you want happens. And they had set up in the house different routines in each room.

So there was like a um a watch TV routine. There was a leaving the home routine and of course a good morning routine, which I was excited to try out. I got into good, got ready, have to start my day.

And again, that no motion senses. So I had to, I had to say a command to get things going. And IT did the Normal staff.

And the light song started the shower, which is something i've always wanted. But again, really expensive. If you looked into moon or colas smart showers, it's not deep. So you know, I just didn't sort of have that ambient feel. And also, he was really slow and really leggy. And again, i'm like, guys, this is this is your sort of ultimate set up and you basically just reaffirming my feeling that this is still basically a remote control for your home, which which is great that has its use case. But IT is not start tress computer and IT is not an ambient home.

I actually i'd love that decision because I think one of the thing you know I i've talked about over the years and that i've been forever fascinated by is universal remote， which I actually think as a gadget are are sort of wolf li under developed and under considered.

And the idea that I can just sit and hold a thing and IT becomes like a magic wand for all of my gear strikes me as a much more attainable than some of the other stuff were working on and be really cool and useful. Like I I have I have six or seven remotes just for the stuff here in my basement. And in terms of like actual human utility, putting all of that into one usable device makes a lot of sense.

And so I think to your point, it's not nothing to turn this into something that can go do an individual thing on your behalf. Rate having like one interface for all of that stuff, even a commended a time is not nothing, is also nowhere near the like big ambient computing, something that can do everything for you. And h awd, the amazon has used more and more over time, is proactively, right?

Like the idea is not just that you should be able to ask you to do IT for you and I will yeah you should be able to do IT for you. yes. Just the fact that you have to say good morning in order to to tell you that you've woke him up and to start the routine is actually a failure of the system.

IT should just know you've woke up and do the things for you, right? Like, and again, all that technology is there. Yes, there are these people like, again and cost some billion dollars.

But like, you can buy the eight sleep thing that tracks are sleep in, the the the pieces of the puzzle are sitting there. And alex a was supposed to be the thing that put them all together in such a way that you didn't have to. And and right now, we're still on the universal remote face well.

And two election credit IT is if there is one thing that is more difficult to navigate than voice control, IT is a universal remote.

There are like eight logical harmony owners out there are screaming and this I want you to know, I hear you and and I love you.

but is true. But the universe remotes have their place, but there's also a reason why there are very few of them around. But what the problem with universal remote and with elea as IT is today is that specific, Norman, the fact that you have to say specific words to get alex a to do something or press specific sequence buttons on you on universal remote.

But yeah, it's it's that the ambient part is is the intelligence and none neither of those things currently have the intelligence. And you know there are that's where that's the next step in the smart hm, whether it's amazon that can bring that intelligence or another company, there are many, many trying. That's what we need.

We need the systems that can understand context, that can understand everything. That's in our home. I mean, when I spoke with David yump, when they have their last event in october of twenty twenty three, he you know he said we have feeding all of every smart home manual ever made, made into extra to make IT more intelligence, so that IT knows the devices in your home.

That's what IT. IT needs that knowledge. But then IT also needs the intelligence to be able to act on them.

For example, I have a smart force IT in my kitchen, and if I go up to IT to, or I can use ame, I can use lexus to have to do fun things like dispense two cups of water at ninety degrees, you know, perfect for baby bottle. And you can set these projects. But I have to be standing in front of the force IT.

And I will have to say, alexa asked men to dispense two cups of water at ninety degrees. And sometimes IT all say, okay. And sometimes I will say, I can't do that.

Please set up your devices again. Something on those lines. yeah. And then my my husband was watching me trying and play with this other day.

He said, shouldn't IT just know that you're standing in front of the kitchen force? And when you say I want two cups of water, just do IT and IT should and IT could. That is a future we could have. There is enough technology just even in echo devices and also in devices like from apple and google that you have in your home there. Smart because things like uwb radar, there's the technology is there.

I mean, forgot the amazon ones ring, which makes a drone with a camera that will fly around your house like allegedly, fair IT, allegedly that will do that to fair point. We get like again. And I think we should just say and then move on from the fact that like all of this requires a deep like privacy trade off yeah in a way that should make people uncomfortable and is a trade off that we are going to need to recon with as people. If that technology is ever going to get to what you're describing, we are going to have to make some like very conscious decisions about I want my speaker to be aware that I am standing at the sink and I we should just leave that conversation for another time because I think that is a place where, like, everyone is going to have to make personal decisions about how they feel about that self. But that is what IT requires.

I do need to disinfect because we've gone to almost an hour, and I haven't mention the inward, but this is where matter.

Could god, well, that's the verge. Cast me.

So worst its up to the platforms how they implement and my money would be on amazon using the cloud. Gosh, not sure why ber anyway, a platform a smart and platform using matter can keep all of that information entirely local and use that data locally. So but what opining that will have .

many more chances to have that version of conversation. But to your point, this is the future everyone imagined, right? I think that the really interesting point were out right now. Is anyone thinking about this kind of ambient computing future? Thinks about IT roughly the same way. The goal is the we're a moment right now where everyone thinks it's the same technology that's gonna get us there um which again brings us to dave lymph a year ago uh who I don't know, I guess in retrospect like way to announced a gigantic reboot of alexa was that is my overstating .

IT to put IT no, I mean, they he got on stage and demand a new, very much more conversational alex. So that was the kind of the big show off was being able to talk to the voice assistant naturally, not having to constantly repeat the weight word and have IT IT had more personality like IT was kind of joking with him.

And that sort of natural conversation, which was, again, the sort of the north star, the star tec computer, being able to speak naturally and have a conversation, is something they've been working towards. And this demo did show that IT was almost reality. They also, at the event, talked about how elexa was we have to do more of what we've been talking about here and sort of do more intelligent responses.

And one of the things that sort of multistep routine, so you could create something just by telling elect a list of things you wanted to accomplish. They they not like like to a computer and have IT just real those off without you having to go into an ad and set up a routine and then set up a trigger so you don't have to spend your time programme in your smart home. You just think, oh, actually want this to happen right now.

Elexa do IT for me, and I will do IT. And then you know this, this is a sort of the new vision, how it's going to get there. I mean, ultimately, what I would like is something like that. I would like to be able to have elected follow through commands that I have, but also understand the context of them.

So for example, an idea, I sort of came up with what I would love to be able to say something like, alexa, tell my son not to forget his science project, you know, set the alarm when he leaves in the morning, then unlocked the back door. Four P. M.

For the plummer, locked again at five and then preheat the evan at six o'clock. But if i'm running late at just the time, you know so you don't want the house time and IT would a bit amazon's gonna need a lot more context to be able to duce this type of thing. And this is the type of thing that we're already seen hints of in the other ecosystems like that. Some of what theory may be able to do in terms of the intelligence theory, not the smart home control, but understanding the night that i'm running late or now they go theory. She's on IT.

don't worry. Glad I look forward to what he comes back with.

The there is.

Theory, everybody are you keep going. Sorry.

I forgot to about that one.

This is great. We're leaving all of this. And this is the most. This is a real shown, not telephone.

We do something about google next. Hey, gool you, anna, pipe up. No, he, that IT doesn't listen this one right here. Nothing, nothing.

Yeah yeah. This is why the alexa team is not afraid of cool. what? apple?

Okay, sorry, but yeah. And I that context aware voice assistant ant is the kind of, you know, the holy grail for me that is the computer, that is the ambient technology. And you you you know, speaking of like the type of technology that apple said, its bringing to theory with the context where siri, you could imagine, and this may be something a little bit out there and might scared most .

people are for that. Is there something else I can help with?

Um is is something like this okay, so it's suck. At night i'm working in my home office, my mom bringing the kids home and she's texted me that she's bringing a frozen pizer. So my smart sistina sees the text message, knows that is my mom and not me, because i'm also mom, and starts pretty the event, you know, so that the frozen pizer can go in as soon as they get home.

Unlocks the door six sixty, which is when they said they were gone to arrive. Turns on the air purifier because he knows the evens on and then after we ve had dinner um the robot vacuum will just automatically start a quiet, clean and mop of the kitchen and then if someone has thought to shut the dish washer, IT will start running automatically. And then I sit down on the couch and without having to say anything or do anything, because uwb senses in my hometown.

D minis or my alexa samba know that we're sitting on the couch, you know, the lights dim down, the TV turns on and IT knows the kids are there. So IT starts playing something family friendly than IT knows. We like watching, like, say, last night's recording of the voice.

Yes, I do like voice, and they know. And then eight, thirty, IT turns off because he knows it's bad time, maybe my moon, smart force IT, if they had one for the bath, would start running a bath for me at the right temperature. Tend the lights on upstairs place in suzi music.

And I haven't had to do anything. My assistant and my home have has pulled all that together for me. I mean, is that the dream or does that slightly terrify you?

I mean, both, to be honest, and I think I think that's mostly the dream. I think there are bits and pieces of that that I think the the sort of perfectly pro active assistance is actually the wrong answer. Ah like one thing i've learned over time talking to people who work at streaming companies is that the idea of you just sit down and IT plays the perfect for you is actually not correct.

It's the like the the amazon thing of like what if they could just give you the stuff that you want? Like people like to shop, right? People like to Brown. And even the thing that is technically the perfect .

thing for you don't have a thirteen year old and sixteen year old.

This I didn't say it's a good thing that people like to do this, but people do like to do this ah and and the idea of like if you sit down, even if what you want to watch is the voice, if you just puts the voice on for you IT feels weird. And so I think there there are things about like if my house just started to drawing me a bath at bath time, there's something odd about that. But if if you can try me and be like, hey, would you like me to write that that starts to feel really viable, right? Think there's a really interesting in her face question there where it's like a friday night it's like us in movie night tonight you're like, yes, IT is and then it's just the whole thing a whereas instead you are to comment right you and when you have a personal system, you talk to them, right?

It's not like I know I do want to.

but like you had a human personalities that you would talk to them and they would ask you questions and that's that's a fine set of interactions yeah you wouldn't have to say their name and then a series of words in the corrector, right? So I think there's there's a bunch of really interesting interface questions there.

But with the with the LLM stuff that everybody he's betting on right now, 那 the thing I keep thinking about is that what I will definitely do， I feel very good about the fact that large english models are going to make understanding your queries Better, right? Like we have ample evidence now that for things like speech to text and financial language processing and text to speech, l EMS are very good. They're Better than the systems we have before.

So I think the idea that i'm going to be able to say that paragraph of things that you just said to aleta and I will understand them, I feel very good about that. yeah. But as we have seen for ten years, that only part of the process yeah and LLM don't solve any of the other parts of the process.

And I think like I think you're your point about what google and apple can do here is, is really important because a they both have access to your phone, which gives location data IT gives them lots of infrastructure context, which is very important, all this kind of stuff. I also think google has a big advantage because it's connected to things like your calendar and your email more intimately in a lot of ways and also has like your web search, which is very powerful. Apple gets a lot of that because if it's google deals, like there are some weird anti trust things going on here. But amazon does not have any of that and really doesn't .

have a path to getting any of that to IT, which is the extra step on.

on your part, right? sure. And I think like do I want to give alex access to my gmail? Is, again, personal question. There are probably upside to doing that over time.

I can like trip IT forward my emails writing this exactly.

But I think like I I have found myself using germany a lot to look for information in my google stuff. And that's really powerful. And amazon just has none of that. And so alex a has none of that. And I think if I were to like galaxy brain, all of the crazy gadget launches, amazon is head over the years.

They are so desperate to put a lecon front of you at all times that you will just accidentally end up giving IT all of that information is serious ly like. And I think that's not a crazy strategy, right? Say, if you're wearing glasses that have elected a big, then you're onna talk to elexa more and thus you're gona tell IT more information.

You're gna have to remind you of more stuff IT might gain more information just by listening. Like there are a lot of things they can do with that kind of ubiquity, but a doesn't have that. B, it's not going to any attention and see even that I don't think is enough. So I gets to this point where like maybe alexa, I had to get a lot Better at the thing that was already good at and not that much Better anything else. But maybe that's cynical.

but IT definitely feels like there is a big reset coming. I mean, we got the tears of the new election or the remarkable election as it's been reportedly referred to. And there was a big piece by the wall street journal out of talking about um all the problems amazon has had and that was the rumor is that it's remarkable I think i'm not sure about remarkable to think van of that.

But anyway, although kind of a sick burn of ten years of alex a like we had pedestrian alex a now we have a but you know.

they have a new hardware chief panels pane, who friend of the veda ast and he did not want to talk about new election the last time .

you had him on.

not all, but he did him quite heavily at that. It's it's coming. And this year, I picked up on in that conversation, and I think there is a big reset. And we haven't had a full event this year, the first time in a while. So we haven't had dozens of new devices.

We've instead, there's been drives and drugs of news coming out over the last few weeks that you would have totally been part of a big event like there's a new outdoor ero ring is finally got twenty four seven recording, new kindle, lots of kindles. There's also more devices going away. We know that echo off with clock R I P that went a few months ago.

Rumor hazard, the eco fifteen is on the out. It's been a stock for a long time, more services being killed elexa together, which was their home care service, which I really I thought was a great service. But you know, we've seen a big reset. We've seen andy ji been reported that he sort calling the devices in service division.

But i'm hoping that this is all in a sort of streamline effort for what I said at the beginning of the conversation is that they they had too much emphasis on gadgets and gizmos and not enough on the core value proposition of what the assistant can offer and trim in the craft, and hopefully bringing everything together in a much more focused, usable way with, you know, Better, you, I Better voice interface powered by L L ams. I think I know they have their own elea L M, but there's been reports that they're also gonna using and is IT clawed. So there's there's lots going on.

It's just a question of are they can get IT right? Um is IT going to be a new hardware shift, which would be a tough cell because there's a lot of a lot of echoes out there. Um but also I kind of feel like we need IT like the echo has should have become you a throw away gadgets.

You know, I saw so many reports of my research of people like all I have three or four echo dots in cupboard and draws and just don't use them because there's commoditize cheat and you can buy them for eighteen dollars and there's no real expectation of anything great coming out of a cheap piece of hardware on your table. Um you know there's IT. It's it's definitely a moment where I think um they have the opportunity to do something pretty exciting and just like they did ten years ago when they launched elea on november six, two thousand and fourteen. But we gonna get IT.

Do you think amazon is right to still call IT alexa? I think what question we've been asking a lot is, are the are the old ways of thinking about these voice assistance the right way to think about the next way of them? and. Google is basically killing google assistant in favor of german I apple still seems to be using syria, but apple intelligence is very much the sort of bigger umbrella and then serious at this point, uh, amazon appears still be all the way bought into alexa as the thing and is very much going to sort of bake new technology into all of the existing stuff rather than just kind of wiping the slate and starting over. Do you think .

that's recall? Yeah so from talking to all three people at all three of companies about this IT sounds like the technology that there's a real disconnect between what the current raster stance can do and what the l EMS can do. And the l EMS cannot do a lot of what the current voice assistance can do.

Like I had heard memos from one company that they basically were having to come to rebuild everything they had done for their previous voice assistant, for their new L. L. And I like, why are we doing this? This is reinventing the wheel.

And so IT feels to me like a much a machine, or emerging of the two, make them a sense. But again, not engineer. This may be a technical impossibility.

There may be too much technical baggage, varied underneath elector and theory and goose assistant that just will not mess with the future pathway. But I think we need to keep the names. We do not need new names that that that seems like a non started to me and especially for amazon. I mean, they they spent a decade building a very recognizable brand that they constantly tell me people love like people love their legs.

I think that's true. I think people think series sucks and alex a is great. Yes.

limited and google smart yeah like google .

assistant is kind of look like the the nerdy weird kid in the corner, right? That is like it's very cool but no one really talks about IT uh but it's IT does some impressive stuff, uh, but I do think it's true that I think I think you could have made the case that walking away from theory would have been a smart move for apple. Yes, given the baggage of syria, I don't think, alex, that has that bagge.

I think people mostly have settled into this thing is from music and timers. But like you said, IT cost eighteen dollars, so who cares? Uh, and now if amazon can say, oh, this thing that you bought now has incredible new capabilities, that's really powerful.

I, I, I IT remains to be seen whether that is the case. And I think with a lot of LLM s we continue to be sold bill of goods that uh is not based in reality in a lot of ways. Yeah but also I tend to think you're right.

I I I could imagine a world in which azz is like, here's a whole new brand were changing everything. But also like these things are everywhere. They are pretty simple hardware and it's all in the cloud anyway. So like if they can just suddenly upgrade everyone's speakers in some massive way, that becomes that .

becomes prety powerful. Well, my original echo, which is in my husbands garage, according to dave limp at the event last year, will be updated to support the new elexa have .

another ten years in IT IT might yeah I mean.

that's pretty impressive and that's that's a whole infrastructure that I don't see amazon getting rid of. And yeah, I think that that that's the right move. Make alexa smarter and IT.

The capabilities and the possibilities is just get get really interesting. I'm excited to see what they can do. I just want them to hurry up and do IT you at me .

and everybody at this point uh but here's we are going to do you're going to have to come back when they launch IT, which as far as we know might be in like the next yeah but were both going to review whatever the new exciting is on the very first echo i'm going to find mine is somewhere and we're going to talk about IT. We're going to have ten year old hardware with brand new software, and we're going to see if IT.

if magic has really happened. Sounds like a good plan.

So right, jane, thank you. Is always again, I suspect we will see you again very soon. Sounds good. thanks. see.

right? We got to take one .

more break and then we're going to come back and take a question from the vertit hot line. We'll be right back.

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right? We're back. Let's get to the outline. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge one one.

The email is verge cast at the verge com. We love all of your questions. Please keep sending them.

Keep calling in. Hearing from you is the episode de best. We got a bunch more episodes to do this here.

Cannot wait for hot line questions. Love everything that everybody he's been sending. Thank you. Is always this week we have both the question and a product idea about airports, a .

verd cast. This is caro calling in from taxes and add question for you. Was listened to episode on the new hearing aid updates to apple's airports.

And while the new updates sounds exciting and i'm looking forward to seeing help people benefit from the testing capabilities is in hearing aid functionality. Your discussion about me thinking, don't kill me, but I sometimes do the same thing that i'll mentioned worth, i'm ordering something. I just take one of a mile.

And in most social settings nowadays, that seems to pretty consistently communicate. They are listening to the other person, especially since nearly all headphones pots. What are real listening to? But since that doesn't work for those using your pods as hearing aides, I had an idea what apple added lds to their headphones. This would hide key v to copying samsung's new models.

But even though IT would take some time for everyone to learn that might allow you to tell if someone else wearing airports can hear you speaking to him, IT would kind of be like the way I will try to have ice, say, on the vision pro, communicate where if the user is paying attention, but hopefully not in the way that's deeply in the uncandor valley. I thought IT was a fun idea, but maybe, well, instead we'll just get used to people wearing headphones in public. But I was really interested, ted, to hear a feel that that might work.

Thanks again, so much for taking my call. Love the show. bye.

okay. I share this call for two reasons. One because I actually think it's not some idea, and I think the idea of putting some kind of notification L D on airports to signal really whatever you want IT to signal.

But in this case that would be as a signal that they're in hearing mode, actually fits with what we're seeing from a lot of technology right now, right? Uh, he mentioned the face stuff on the vision pro, but to me, this sounds more like what you see on the latest run of smart glasses. Probably the easier example is the rabbit and met a smart glasses where they actually have a light that says essentially you're being recorded.

And I think that, that is still pretty new and we're still figuring that out. And I mean, you rewind back to google glass and the idea that they're being a light suggesting that you're being recorded didn't actually to help anybody and just made everything feel gross and bad and didn't solve lot of problems. But I think we're at a point now where those kinds of things can be communicated, right where you're saying, OK, this is this is listening to you in some way.

And I actually think the idea of using an L, D, to mean essentially you are being captured by my device in some meaningful way kind of works, right? Whether it's the camera is on and I can see you and i'm taking video of you or my headphones are capturing what you're saying and feeding IT to me, either one of those of people that all the way down is just you are being captured in some way. And I think if that's all we need these alias to signify, that can really work.

It'll take some marketing work to get people to understand that it'll takes some time for IT sort of society catch on. But I would actually rather than in that place than just pure constant acceptance of heart runs. Because if we get to the point where you're wearing headphones and I still assume that I can talk to you, I think that's bad.

I think that's wrong. Frankly, in a lot of ways, headphones as a signal of leave me alone, are actually really powerful and valuable. And also, it's just true that a lot of the times when you're wearing head funds, you can hear other people.

So having a much more aggressive signal that says I can hear you, I am capturing you in some way, works remain. So I think that's a great idea. I hope apple do something like that.

I think we might be giving samsung a little too much credit. Samsung just like put L E S on the galaxy buds 3 pro。 They don't really do anything.

I think they light up when you turn on to find my feature, which like sure, but they can show battery. They don't show when there. You know in various modes, there are many things they could do there.

I think the lights actually look good. In samsung's case, they're mostly just aesthetic, but it's proof that you could do something like this. And I think that's a very compelling. So i'm in favor of this idea one hundred percent. I hope apple does IT. But the other reason I show this is because we got a lot of feedback from people when Chris watches and I talked about the hearing ID mode on the airports and especially when we talked about the societal shift that is coming for headphones. And I think i've been pretty blazer about IT to a certain extent, right?

Like I look at my nephews who are both teenagers, they most of the time just have one airports in, and I don't really think anything of IT, but then I talk to lot of other people who view that as rude and off putting and deliberately removing yourself from a social situation in some way. I'm confident they don't see IT that way, but IT might be that way anyway. So I think that piece of IT is complicated and it's not going to a get easier.

But if we want these devices to be these kinds of always on the augmented reality devices that are genuinely useful for people's health, but also more more useful just in day to day life for people, that is going to require these huge societal changes. So either we get, you know, the, or we're going to have to figure out the rape and wrong ways to wear head funds. And I would just wanted know what everybody thinks about that.

This is the thing. We ve got a lot of feedback about i'd like to hear your thoughts too. How should we think about headphones in the real world, especially as headphones become more than just music devices, as they become something that actually augment your ability to go through your life while also being a way to listen to music in tiktok? How do we navigate that? What is the right answer for headphones? Should be enter a world where we're all wearing headphones all the time and we just kind of figure that out.

Should have phones just be out, love forever and things that are hearing IT should look like hearing is is there an interesting answer somewhere? And between both culturally and in product, I want to hear all your feedback. This is turned out to be a much bigger, more interesting thing than I expected.

Uh, so please hit us up. I wants to hear everything we're going to keep talking about this in more and more ways in the coming months because I think this matters in some pretty big right that is if for the verge cast today, thank you to everybody was on the show. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for calling the hot line. Thank you for being part of this with us. There's lots more about everything we talked about, including this like mini package of stories we did about the legacy and future of the lexus at the verse that com i'll link to all of in the shown OS, but I always read the verse that com, it's a big week this week, go vote.

If you haven't voted the at if you're listing to this on tuesday in the united states, go vote. Read our election package. Lots great stories and they are read the endorsement.

Go vote. Best of luck, everybody out there. As always, if you have thought, questions, feelings or other lexi devices, you would like to set off and set of my house. You can always at verceil vert or all in hearing this shows produce by liam James wilpon and eric com. Verge cast is verge production and part of the box media podcast network. Now I will be back on friday to talk about honestly, I couldn't even guess at this point because it's an election week and I suspect will be talking about that plus other product news, plus a bunch of apple soft shipping this week. Last to do, we'll see you then.

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