Josh Hendrickson
Voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant are handy and helpful to have around. But talking to them isn’t always convenient. If you prefer Google Assistant, you can type to it instead, but Alexa users were out of luck. That is until now—you can now text to Alexa instead of speaking a command. At least, if you’re on an iOS preview.
The Ambient first spotted the change, and for now, it appears to be an iOS-only test. If you have access to the public preview, you should see a new keyboard option when you open the Alexa app.
The company confirmed the test to The Verge, stating:
Type with Alexa is a Public Preview feature available to iOS Alexa app customers allowing you to interact with Alexa without using voice, meaning everything you can currently say to Alexa can now also be typed using your Alexa mobile app. Type with Alexa is available to iOS customers in the U.S.
What’s not clear is how widely the test is rolling out or when it will come to Android. The ability to type to a voice assistant isn’t new; you can already type to Google Assistant and Cortana. But until now, it was voice only with Alexa.
Hopefully, the feature will roll out to more users and platforms soon.
via The Ambient
