Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Amazon is finally bringing Alexa voice control to the iPhone

By

Amazon Alexa may be largely considered to be one of the best digital assistants out there, but users haven’t been able to interact with Alexa using their voice on their iPhone. Thankfully, that is now changing — Amazon is finally allowing iOS users to control Alexa with their voice.

The move to Android and iOS marks a big push for Amazon into third-party operating systems. Android users have had voice control since the beginning of the year, and at the time Amazon promised that the feature would be coming to iOS “soon.” Of course, you won’t be able to use Alexa natively on iOS — Apple simply doesn’t allow third-party digital assistants to get the same treatment as Siri — but you will be able to simply open up the Alexa app to ask Alexa questions. The update will be rolled out over the next few days, so if you don’t have it just yet, you will soon.

Recommended Videos

Like Alexa in your Amazon Echo, Alexa on your phone can do all kinds of things. For starters, you can use it to control your connected smart home devices. On top of that, you can ask it about things like the weather and access any of its 40,000-plus skills. Alexa on iOS and Android also has a visual component to it — if you ask about the weather, you get a visual representation of the answer on your phone. If you ask about your calendar events, you see your upcoming appointments.

It makes sense that Amazon would launch the feature on Android and iOS. Because of the fact that the company doesn’t have a decently large mobile user base of its own, it faces an uphill battle against the likes of Apple and Google, who have large user bases that have Google Assistant and Siri available to them in their pocket. Because of that, launching Alexa on mobile seems like the best way for Amazon to proceed in its digital assistant endeavors.

Alexa has been getting increasingly popular over the past few years. Mobile aside, the digital assistant is available in a range of speakers, plus it’s now coming to cars and kitchen appliances too.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper
Contributor
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
I tested iPadOS 18. It’s not the iPad update I was hoping for
home Screen of an iPad Pro that boots iPadOS 18.

I believe I fit into the iPad Pro’s target audience fairly well. I edit videos to make my sibling’s travel clips look nice on social media. Photo manipulation is a part of my daily routine, and I put in roughly 4 to 5 hours each week labeling images of dental scans for a machine learning training and research project.

I push my M4 iPad Pro as far as I can until I reach the frustratingly short limits of its operating system. Ever since Apple dropped the bombshell of a class-leading 3-nanometer processor being put inside its latest flagship tablet, the chatter of iPadOS finally getting a computing-worthy overhaul kicked into an all-time frenzy.

Read more
I turned my iPhone into a BlackBerry, and now my fingers hate me
A person holding the iPhone 15 Pro Max inside the Clicks Keyboard case.

The last thing I expected to do this year was turn my iPhone into a BlackBerry, yet here I am, typing these words on the Clicks Keyboard case for the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

It’s easily one of the most fun iPhone accessories I’ve ever seen, but my pinky finger definitely hates me after I’ve used it for only a short amount of time. Why? Let's get into it.
First, what is Clicks?

Read more
Apple just released the iOS 18 public beta; here’s how to download it
Screenshots of Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.

If you don’t have an Apple Developer Account and have been eager to try out iOS 18 on your iPhone, rejoice! Apple has finally released the first public beta for iOS 18. The public betas are typically a bit more stable than the developer betas, which is a reason why some people hold off until the public beta.

Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 18 right after the WWDC 2024 keynote on June 10. Since then, three developer betas have come out, and Apple tends to release about three developer betas before the public version a week later. Apple also said that the public beta would arrive sometime in July, and that time has come.

Read more