You can now squeeze HTC's U11 to trigger Amazon's Alexa assistant

HTC has finally come through on its promise of integrating its U11 flagship smartphone with Amazon's voice interface Alexa according to Tom's Guide. From 17 July, 2017 users residing in the US can download the Alexa app from Google's Play Store. Versions for other countries are also in the process of being released.Setting up the app is simple and it calls for a simple update. Users will then need to log on to the app using their Amazon account to get things up and running.This would now mean that your HTC U 11 now packs in three digital assistants namely HTC's Sense Companion, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa. Sense Companion offers non-spoken suggestions and reminders based on your behavior, while Google Assistant still reigns supreme when it comes to general questions. With Alexa Amazon is simply out to offer good hands-free support with the obvious plug into its e-commerce services.In short, you can get the same features of an Amazon Echo or Dot speakers but on your smartphone that you can carry around all the time.With the app up and running on your HTC U11 Alexa can pick up queries using voice commands. You can then use the trigger "Hey Alexa" to call for Amazon's assistant and it will try and answer your query even if your screen is off or locked similar to Google Now. HTC has taken things a step further by integrating support for Alexa with its Edge Sense technology that lets set up the U11 to trigger Alexa when you squeeze the side of the phonePrior to this the only other smartphone integration with Alex was available in Huawei's Mate 9 but did not have any hands-free support.