Amazon Alexa is one of the most popular smart assistants available. With support for a wide range of devices and the ability to check the news, give a quick update on your favorite sports team, or perform hundreds of other tasks, it’s an incredibly useful piece of software. But it’s the support for smart home products that really makes Alexa compelling, as it can quickly send commands to most devices and gives you remote access to all your gadgets.
Here, we take a look at how to use the Alexa app on any smartphone, along with tips on how to make the most of all its features.
You can personalize the way that Alexa works on all of your supported devices by installing Amazon’s Alexa app via the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
If you’ve never used an Alexa-enabled device before, it’s worth taking a few minutes to customize it. Tap the Three-line menu icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen to access the following:
You can tap the Three-line menu icon, and select Settings to review your various Alexa-enabled devices and set names for them, as well as locations, time zones, and preferences for temperature and distance measurement units.
The Alexa app can tell the time, deliver a weather report, or provide daily sports and news summary from NPR, CNN, the Associated Press, and more. Here are some commands that Alexa supports:
The Alexa app is compatible with Amazon’s Kindle and Audible services. If you ask, “Alexa, read my Kindle book,” you’ll hear an audiobook recording or text-to-speech transcription of the most recent addition to your Amazon library. Asking, “Alexa, read my audiobook” prompts the assistant to start or resume any audiobook you’ve purchased from Audible.
You can pair a variety of home appliances and electronics with the Alexa app, not to mention commands over your automobiles. If you have a Philips Hue or Samsung SmartThings device, Alexa can switch on lights or change TV channels. You can remotely start vehicles, change the interior temperature, run on-demand diagnostics and alerts, search destinations, and remotely locate your car using Hyundai’s Blue Link platform. Here’s a list of all the Alexa-supported Internet of Things devices.
Alexa and Amazon’s shopping platforms are tightly integrated, allowing you to place an order for anything on Amazon Prime, including Amazon Fresh groceries, Amazon Prime Pantry non-perishables, and Amazon Prime Now 2-hour delivery items. You can pull up the status of shipments due for arrival with the simple verbal command, “Alexa where’s my stuff?.” Investing in Alexa software will also grant you special bargains on any number of goods and services that pop up throughout the year through numerous companies.
Many apps fall within Amazon’s collection of skills, meaning that Alexa can enable these apps through voice recognition. A particularly useful one is the Chef app, which can read recipes, send shopping lists, and track expiration dates. Uber and Lyft’s apps can summon rides to your approximate location and Fitbit’s app can tell you how many steps you’ve taken. The Capital One app details your bank balance, while apps from Dominos, Pizza Hut, and Grubhub allow you to get food delivered.
Are you tired of paying for streaming services you never watch just to get a phone plan feature you actually want? T-Mobile has good news for you! The carrier is rolling out new plans, called T-Mix, in early November to replace its old Experience lineup with a build-your-own perks system called Picks.
The benefits you choose vary from streaming and gaming to food delivery, AI, satellite service, and phone discounts. But if you are satisfied with your existing plan, you can keep it.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.