Best Alexa Phone App Features You May Not Know About
The big appeal of the Amazon Echo is that you can complete tasks without touching your phone. So, you might be missing out that the Alexa app you used to set up your Echo is actually really useful on its own. Here are some of the best things he can do.
Manage your purchases and to-do lists
You can use Alexa to add items to your shopping and to-do lists, read them to you, and then mark them complete without ever touching your phone. However, you can also view and edit both lists from the Alexa app. Click the menu button in the app to open the left navigation bar. Then tap Shopping & To-Do Lists.
You will find a very simple set of lists here. If you’re used to apps like Wunderlist or Todoist, this won’t suit your needs. You can mark items as complete and add new ones, but you cannot set due dates or create multiple lists. On the other hand, if you’re not home and need to add an item to your to-do list, you can enter it manually and Alexa will read it to you when you get home.
Browse your music libraries and audiobooks
If you know what you want to listen to, Alexa can usually summon it with a simple voice command. If you want to search for something, you can do it in the app. Tap the menu button and tap Music & Books. Here you will find a list of music and audiobook apps. Tap one of these and you can explore your library on that service without leaving Alexa.
If you have an account with the service, you can browse your library. For example, in Pandora, you can find a list of all your stations. If you have Amazon Prime, you can browse Prime Music stations and playlists. You can even tap Kindle Books to see which of your eBooks can be read aloud. Alexa reading a book is not the same as a real audiobook, but you might be surprised at how many of your books can be read aloud.
Find your audio history and see which songs are in the queue
Although Alexa keeps a record of every request you make, searching by timers can be difficult to find the song you played a while ago. Luckily, the Alexa app’s Now Playing section also contains a history of everything you’ve played. You can find songs, audiobooks and stations that you listened to.
The Now Playing section also has a Queue tab where you can see which songs are currently playing. Some services, like Pandora, don’t use this feature, but if you’re listening to a playlist or station from Amazon, you can look ahead to see what’s coming and even add songs to your library.
Customize your flash briefing with the news you want
One of Alexa’s little-known features, Flash Briefing , plays a short snippet of news to keep you in the loop while you go about your day. By default, it plays news from NPR, but you can also get news from many other sources. To customize the briefing, press the Menu button in the app, tap Settings, and then select Flash Briefing.
You will see two sources here. NPR and Alexa weather forecast. Click “Get More Flash Briefing Content” at the top and you can search for your favorite news bulletins. From the Wall Street Journal to Fox News and the Daily Show, they all have packages that you can add to your briefing. Turn on the ones you want and hit the return button. In the Settings menu, you can turn on or off the sources for which you want to restrict the Flash Briefing to only the news that interests you.
Get more information after searching
You might not consider opening the Alexa app after using a voice command, but it offers a ton of useful information that voice commands can’t. For example, if you’re looking for a restaurant, Alexa might read a couple of results for you. However, in the app you will find a list of Yelp results with ratings, address, and distance from your location.
Each request has different options on the cards. While some of them are useless (like “find [your query] in Bing”), many are incredibly useful. When you are looking for a musician, you can add their music to your Amazon library. When you read a Kindle book, you can search Audible for the audiobook version. Some third-party skills even add very useful information. For example, a 7-minute workout – one of the skills we love very much – contains diagrams showing how to do each workout. Of course, the whole point of having an Echo is that you don’t have to pull your phone out for everything, but it’s good to check from time to time.