The giant Apple counter-attacks…

The company Cupertino, who has remained strangely quiet about these topics over the previous months, has just hit back with its project to transform iMessage into a customer relationship platform and also announced, during its developer conference, the arrival of the Apple HomePod, destined to compete with Amazon Echo and Google Home..

Apple wants to extend iMessage to companies with Business Chat, enabling businesses to manage their customer relationships, just like the chatbots on Facebook Messenger. This functionality is outlined on Apples developer page and although it is overdue, it will have the merit of rivaling various instant messenger services.

According to Apple, this functionality will enable clients to carry out transactions and therefor, shop online. Until we get more information during the Apple conference on the 9^th of June regarding the topic, here is a short description of the functionality: “A new, powerful way for businesses and clients to connect via messaging. Using Business Chat allows clients to get answers to their questions, resolve problems and carry out transactions on their iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Customers can find your company and start a conversation using Safari, Maps, Spotlight and Siri”.

To get to the consumers in their own homes, the smart speaker HomePod is betting on music to try and enter households. To compete with its rivals, Apple is counting on the pods high quality sound system which will give clients to best musical experience possible.

The HomePod is also equipped with the assistant Siri, which will be able to communicate with HomeKit in order to manage home automation, just like Amazon Echo or Google Home.

Siri’s artificial intelligence is only activated when someone says “Hey Siri” and, contrary to Amazon & Google, the enquiries made are anonymous. For the occasion, Siri is now able to translate in multiple languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese).

Seen as we have been talking about the conversational business for over two years, and regarding what’s happening in China with Wechat, Apples silence was surprising especially considering Facebook and Amazon’s breakthroughs. These solutions allowed Apple to catch up with its GAFA rivals. This announcement will please Apple users because they will evolve in a known ecosystem. Launching this product later than its rivals has also allowed Apple to learn from their mistakes.

Apple has now officially joined the race to enter the business of the future that Echangeur has been anticipating for quite a while. The arrival of the Cupertino’s giant will most definitely speed up to penetration of the use of this new technology and allow for smooth trade whether using instant messaging or smart speakers. Business chat might achieve what iBeacon didn’t manage to: centralizing business around the ecosystem created by Steve Jobs. The HomePod will be the Service based hub of the made in Apple digital home, which was cherished by its founder and created under the auspices of the security of personal data.

These two solutions enable Apple to join Amazon, Facebook and Google in the ecosystem race.

Will Apple become the supplier of your daily privileged services?”