After Google Home and Amazon Echo, it's Apple's turn: first take

If the brand-new, voice-activated Google Assistant inhabiting Google Home could somehow have a private conversation with Alexa, its counterpart and soon-to-be rival inside Amazon Echo, the conversation would ask: "What the heck is Siri up to?" The question takes on added relevance now that Google has unveiled Google Home, its promising, off-rumored answer to Amazon's increasingly popular--and increasingly versatile -- Echo speaker. If Google Home lives up to its promise, and we won't know for sure until this small, yet-to-be-priced, always-listening appliance shows up later in the year, then we'll have another relevant voice-driven device inside the house to play music, control the appliances (Nest anyone?), and, yes, leverage Google's expertise in search. Moreover, Google Home, which brings to mind Google's OnHub routers, also communicates with the Chromecast device you might have plugged into your TV, leading to all sorts of intriguing possibilities with YouTube and other Google properties. So yes, we have Google Home versus Amazon Echo, and it's worth noting that Google CEO Sundar Pinchai credited Amazon during his I/O remarks for "creating a lot of excitement in this space."