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The Alexa Skills revolution that wasn’t

Voice assistants were supposed to be the end of apps. That didn’t go so well.

It never solved some fundamental problems for developers, never cracked the user interface, and never found a way to show people all the things their Alexa device could do if only they’d ask. Please enable ‘Email Address’ permissions in your Alexa app.” At this point, you have to find a buried setting in an app you might not even have on your phone; it would be vastly easier to just go to Domino’s website. Saying “Alexa, ask AnyList to add spaghetti to my grocery list” is not seamless interaction with an all-knowing assistant; that’s having to learn a computer’s incredibly specific language just to use it properly.

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