AppleInsider Staff
Amazon last week began querying customers over potential features they would like to see included in a new mobile messaging platform called "Anytime," which according to reports boasts text and video chat, voice calling, group tasks and social networking functionality.
Surveys seen by existing customers include slides explaining the service and seem to suggest Anytime is close to launch, reports AFTVNews. Like other standalone messaging platforms, Amazon's foray is expected to make a debut on both iOS and Android.
From images seen by the blog, Anytime appears to be an all-in-one messaging solution that incorporates social networking elements. For example, encrypted text, video and voice chats are accompanied by public photo and video sharing features with "@" mentions, filters and special effects, all staples of services like Instagram and Twitter.
Anytime will also fold in group features like playing games, listening to music, ordering food and sharing location data, the report said. Being an Amazon product, the platform is intrinsically tied to commerce and is expected to facilitate communication with businesses, place reservations at restaurants and order items through Amazon's internet shopping portal.
How Amazon expects to integrate contacts is unknown, though an informational slide says users can get in touch with other people "just using their name." Phone numbers are apparently not required, suggesting Amazon will have users sign up for the service using email credentials or piggyback on to existing social networks and messaging apps.
Amazon might be building off its Chime video conferencing service, a cross-platform product that launched earlier this year for enterprise users. Alternatively, Anytime could borrow from Alexa's recently released messaging and calling features.
The features tipped by Amazon's survey line up closely with new functionality coming to iPhone and iPad with iOS 11. Apple is adding a slew of new assets with the upcoming operating system including photo filters and special effects powered by advanced computer vision technology, social music sharing via Apple Music, iCloud syncing for Messages, one-to-one Apple Pay payments and much more.
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62 Comments
I WhatsApp as the winner messaging app in the Netherlands.
Apple Messages is one Apple service that is extremely sticky.
One reason is that it works on all of your Apple devices - iPhones, iPads, Macs. If you call or video-call a person with your iPhone to their iPhone, they can seamlessly answer on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Apple's system will route through the internet and will do it with end-to-end encryption. You can't do that why any other messaging system.
Google tried to create a messaging system to attract Apple customers. But it is only available on iOS.
Only Microsoft has created a similar system since Skype works on PCs, Macs and iPhone. But Microsoft no longer does phones - leaving a huge part of the market to its competitors. And only Skype for Business has end-to-end encryption.
amazon should stop the nonsense and focus on their core services. its 2017 and its a bloody nightmare trying to figure out which sellers sell to your country through amazon. P.S. no amazon you can not complete with apple messages coz you dont have the billion devices apple has with messages enabled out of the box! oh and nobody will stop using messenger, viber, whats app coz you decided to do a messages app.
At first I thought "why?" but then I realized that they recently offered messaging as a new feature for Alexa so they must have built something for that, plus most of their customer service is message-based, so why the hell not. Since they don't offer phones or traditional PCs I doubt it will ever be as popular as iMessage and I can't see a path to compete with What's App, FB Messenger, and others, but we should keep in mind that messaging services have a long history of rising and falling in spectacular ways. At this point it's probably very little investment because of the aforementioned efforts to add the great, but limited, service to Alaxa recently.
It's off topic for this article, but I would like to see HomePod allow for text and calls to answered and made via the device, which cellular calls piggybacking on your iPhone connection. This is an area where Amazon can't do what Apple can do in this space. It would be even more convenient than hands-free calling in the car. The Apple TV could even display caller info or text messages if you didn't want to listen her the service read back comment. Lots of potential with Apple that others can't match.