So, Amazon decided to give its Alexa mobile app a little facelift, you know, a fresh coat of digital paint. The focus? Improving how the whole thing looks and shaking up where you find your stuff.
Now, they’ve been messing around with Alexa all through 2023 – introducing bits and bobs like the Home Shortcuts Bar. But instead of teasing us with little updates, they just dropped the whole shebang in one go.
First off, the Home tab got a makeover. It’s like someone tidied up the messy room that it used to be. The old version had this random mix of “Most Relevant” and “Recently Used” items, and it was a bit of a digital mess. Now, it’s got a Shortcuts carousel up top, an Activity section in the middle, and Favorites at the bottom hogging some space.
According to Amazon, Shortcuts is all about organizing your gadgets by category and showing off commonly-used features like Routines. And if there’s stuff you don’t really use, you can tweak the carousel to match your style. Oh, and it tells you what’s up with your smart home gadgets – a bit weird, but hey, it works. They say this feature is rolling out first to folks with “20 or fewer devices,” and the rest of us will catch up in the next few months.
Then there are these Activity cards that pop up with time-sensitive info, like reminders or alarms. They show you what’s coming up, and you can tap “See All” if you want to dig deeper.
Favorites are the quick-access heroes, letting you control your most-used gadgets with just a tap. Right now, they support eight types of devices, like smart lights and locks. Amazon promises they’ll add more to the list down the road.
