Rumor has it that Amazon has been working on an Echo device with a touchscreen for a while. AFTVnews spotted an image on Amazon’s own servers. And it looks like a device we’ve never seen before.
As you can see, this isn’t exactly the best image of the device. It’s extremely pixelated because it’s a tiny thumbnail. I believe it’s going to appear at the top of the Amazon Echo page next to other Echo devices:
It’s worth noting that AFTVnews already leaked the Echo Look before it was announced. It looks like an old first-generation iMac with a tilted display and speakers below the display. And there’s a lighter dot above the screen. It could be a camera, but it’s hard to say with this image quality.
It’s been nearly a year since the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon had been working on an Echo device with a screen codenamed “Knight.” According to later reports, the device should feature a 7-inch display, higher quality speakers and should be announced later this month.
It’s unclear if the device is going to run Fire OS, Amazon’s fork of Android for its Fire tablets, or a brand new operating system. The company could be using the device to display relevant information alongside your voice queries. Amazon will have to convince developers to build apps for this new platform. People will want to browse Spotify and look at the weather on this thing.
This release could be quite important for Amazon as other companies have been working on competing devices. For instance, Apple could announce a revamped version of Siri for iOS 11 at its WWDC conference in June. And Apple could also announce a high-end speaker with a vocal assistant at some point this year.