What would a'world beyond apps' be like? It's hard to imagine using a smartphone that doesn't have any apps, and yet there has been talk of the'post-app era' for some time. However, few think that apps are going to disappear completely, only that the way we interact with them will change. "In the near-term we will see a demise of individual apps at the front-end, with instant messaging and social media interfaces used as a gateway into technologies," says Claus Jepsen, Chief Architect at business software company Unit4. So will we still be physically opening apps in a few years?

Apple now has the tech in place to give its digital assistant a big boost thanks to a UK-based company called VocalIQ it bought last year. "Wipes the floor" remains to be proven and we'll likely see something announced at WWDC in a couple of weeks but this article points out that Apple develops "in private" for the most part. Those who doubt Apple's AI efforts seem to forget that fact.

We don't just test products in our labs--we use them in our daily lives. Stuff We Love chronicles our favorites. Opinions are the writer's own, and are not necessarily shared by Reviewed.com. We may receive a small share of the revenue from your purchase. I know my constant babbling drove some to buying one, and others to madness.

Google, with its goofy logo and name, has never really been a flashy tech company. On the product level it's always lacked the showmanship or salesmanship of Facebook or Apple, especially recently, as a surging Facebook has made a series of splashy announcements about its investments in hip new technology -- VR! Bots! Anyone looking for something similar from Google's I/O developer conference this afternoon would have come away disappointed. It's not that the announcements were a bust. The company unveiled a lot of neat stuff. But "neat" is the right word: nothing surprising, nothing game-changing, nothing mind-boggling, nothing bad. Just, you know, neat: Pleasant new apps for chatting over text and video, an Amazon Echo–like speaker called Home, a new-virtual reality headset, and a bunch of new tech specs for developers to pore over regarding Android.

My kids love Siri, Apple's virtual assistant. They ask her about homework, sports scores and science experiments. They ask her questions that range from the mundane (What is your favorite kind of dog?) to the profound (What is free will?). And, within reason, she answers. I ask her to look up recipes, type texts, check my calendar and find directions all while I'm busy with other activities, like driving or cooking or chasing my kids.

Apple now has the tech in place to give its digital assistant a big boost thanks to a UK-based company called VocalIQ it bought last year. In fact, it was so impressive that Apple bought VocalIQ before the company could finish and release its smartphone app. After the acquisition, Apple kept most of the VocalIQ team and let them work out of their Cambridge office and integrate the product into Siri. Before Apple bought the company, VocalIQ tested its product against Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, and the results were impressive. Users asked each AI questions using normal language, not the robotic commands you're used to using with digital assistants.

It looks like Apple is planning a huge upgrade for Siri, one that will see the voice assistant surge ahead of rivals Google Now, Microsoft's Cortana, and Alexa, the AI behind Amazon Echo. Apple acquired U.K.-based speech processing startup VocalIQ last year, and will be integrating the advances made by the company in processing natural language queries and machine learning into Siri. In fact, it was so impressive that Apple bought VocalIQ before the company could finish and release its smartphone app. After the acquisition, Apple kept most of the VocalIQ team and let them work out of their Cambridge office and integrate the product into Siri. Before Apple bought the company, VocalIQ tested its product against Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, and the results were impressive.

The idea of Google Home is futuristic and pretty great, but still very much cut and dry. In essence, it's meant to be a smart home hub that can power your IoT devices, communicate with just about every gadget you own, act as a speaker, take commands, and use Google's advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning and neural networking technologies to serve you in ways you may not think of. In essence, it's the ultimate form of Google Now, brought into your home and powered by Google's new Assistant. Google Home looks set to take the smart home control hub niche to a whole new level with the help of Google's advanced technologies. There are a few issues, however, and one is that we don't know much about Google Home just yet, and this makes it difficult to gauge consumer interest and how well it may compete in the marketplace.

Amazon has released a web-based version of Alexa, the voice-activated digital assistant that powers its Echo speaker. Called Echosim.io, the service simulates having an Echo -- to a degree. At the user's prompting, Alexa on the Echo can access Amazon Prime or Spotify music, call an Uber, check Google calendar, or listen to an Audible book. In the animation, the Echo's rim starts to pulse blue at the user's prompt. The web-based simulator is far more limited than Alexa in Echo or Amazon's smaller speakers, Dot and Tap.

Apple is working on its own version of the Amazon Echo, and it could include a facial recognition capability, according to new leaks. Like the Echo, Apple's product is aimed at becoming an AI-infused hub for the smart home, allowing users to manipulate connected devices like lights via voice interaction. But its facial recognition capability could make it stand out, with the current goal being to enable the device to identify the individuals in front of it and respond by aligning to their particular user preferences. Together with Google's recently-announced Google Home, Apple's efforts demonstrate the major IT companies' preparations for the coming Internet of Things and the smart home, with each aiming to make its own platform central to a given user's ecosystem. And while Apple's exploration of facial recognition for its own device remains tentative and unofficial, Google's efforts in replacing Andriod devices' password security with other factors including face biometrics could signal a growing focus on facial recognition for that company, too. Amazon, meanwhile, continues to refine the technology underlying its Alexa AI assistant, which is central to the Amazon Echo, and to connect the technology to other devices like wearables.