Alexa may soon dethrone Apple's Siri as the most popular virtual assistant among app developers now that Amazon is opening up the technology behind its Echo wireless speaker.
The company said it would be offering the Alexa Skills Kit, a collection of APIs and other tools to create apps for devices that use the technology, in the future. To top it off, the company is also setting up an Alexa Fund worth $100 million to help spark interest from developers, startups and other organizations.
Mobile developers and designers were quick to applaud Amazon's decision on Twitter, where some were downright gushing with enthusiasm:
Now anyone can make an Amazon Echo. This is an amazing product with so much potential http://t.co/Qaeks9Ia7p via @verge
— BKunneke (@BKunneke) June 25, 2015
Awesome. The Amazon echo is among my most admired product in recent times. #emx https://t.co/RBML6jAZWK
— Emeka Azuka Okoye (@EmekaOkoye) June 25, 2015
Certain technical aspects of the Amazon tools were particularly appealing:
Amazon Echo Alexa Skills Kit sample code using #javascript #nodejs - looks cool! https://t.co/lRBTsOcvZ9
— Adam Loving (@adamloving) June 25, 2015
omg.omg.omg.omg amazon echo SDK uses AWS lambda! i have a use case to learn it now!
— josh gray (@jasper9) June 25, 2015
Overall, mobile developers suggested Amazon has made one of its most competitive moves yet in an area that is still ripe for innovation:
Huge news for #smarthome devices & #homeautomation - Echo API seems to give @Amazon a big lead in voice control tech. http://t.co/zvq9yoKg4M
— Paul McCarthy (@paulilike) June 25, 2015
Voice interfaces everywhere. Alexa Voice API http://t.co/4igc2Dvap2
— Pavlo Bashmakov (@bashmakov) June 25, 2015