Amazon speakers Echo and its assistant Alexa have more and more useful features. However, in one of the latest updates, they removed an ability that you probably didn't know or use, but for others it could be very useful.
Alexa is increasingly capable of doing things. From tracking your orders on Amazon, to playing with you, and most recently, move your music from one speaker to another, if you have several in different corners of the house.
However, updates do not always add things and, in this case, Amazon has sent an email to the users of the speakers Echo communicating that Alexa will no longer do something that, until now, she could do: read your emails aloud.
Not only that, they have also obviously removed the ability to answer them using voice commands, dictating the response to Alexa, without having to turn on the computer or touch the mobile.
Why can't Alexa read your emails anymore?
In the email that Amazon sent to its users of Echo (and that you will no longer be able to hear aloud), Jeff Bezos's company does not give a specific reason. What's more, the disappearance of this feature is quite abrupt, because they barely gave a few days notice and the change came into force on November 8.
As with the warning email, Amazon has also not specified an exact reason when asked by the media about this issue. In a reply to techhiveThey just said this:
"We regularly evaluate the features and experiences available to customers, prioritizing those that make users' lives easier and allow them to get the most out of their Alexa experience."
Translated, comes to say diplomatically that, apparently, not many clients used email reading aloud with Alexa. That's probably why you haven't even noticed that she has disappeared.
What you will no longer be able to do with Alexa when you stop reading your emails
It is undeniable that, in these times in which privacy online is increasingly scarce, many users have received this news with relief. Few want Alexa to read what's intimate in their Gmail account, that's what Google itself is for.
The fact that you can no longer connect your email accounts with your speaker Echo will also make it is not possible to trace the shipment and arrival of third-party packages that are not Amazon.
From now on, Alexa will only report the orders you make in the Jeff Bezos store and nothing else.
However, this can have another unintended consequence. Older users with visual problems, or people with a disability that makes it difficult for them to manage email, will not be able to listen to or answer the email messages they receive.
When you don't get along well with a computer or mobile, or if you have problems using it, features like this are missed.
So some breathe easy and the few who used it will be disappointed, but whatever, Alexa will no longer be able to take a look at your emails.