Amazon continue their random release of skills. It's difficult to judge their criteria. I know of at least three skills (one which is mine) that have been certified for over a month, but Amazon pick these. You can get them too by going to the "skills" tab of your companion app. Here, then, is this week's review of the new skills.

Famous Quotes by Mark Goodrich



Simple skill that reads you famous quotes from history and movies. Just say "Alexa, ask Famous Quotes for a quote".

Pretty much what it says. You can't get simpler than this.

Ease of Use: 4 out of 5. There isn't much to using this skill, because there isn't much to this skill. A few of the readings came out a bit weird, due to Alexa's Text To Speech, and those could have been edited or removed. Also, it doesn't put up any companion app cards, so I couldn't check out the text of it when it went wrong, or when I really liked it and wanted to copy it.

Usefulness: 3 out of 5. This fits the scenario of "I'm sitting on my couch, drinking a beer, and I...". It's a "timewaster app", but, then again, so are the mobile apps I use the most. I can't fault it for that.



Novelty: 1 out of 5. I'm pretty sure the developer threw this together in an hour or so. Although I admire the brilliance of getting Amazon to select an app with so little work (unlike mine which is one of the ones that has been waiting months) there really isn't much there. The forthcoming Angry Bard and Focus Word skills from LME are substantially the same (the other two certified, but unpublished for months skills I am aware of).



Overall: 3 out of 5. It's got general appeal. I think it could use a little clean up. Plenty of scope for companion skills like "Movie Quotes", "<insert religion> Quotes", "Funny Quotes", etc. Or, making the skill a little more complex and giving you the option of selecting a category within the skill.

Trove by Trove



Get the latest headlines on any topic with Trove!

You give it a topic, it gives you headlines. It's a simple verbal front end to search.

Ease of Use: 4 out of 5. It is pretty straight forward. You can put a topic in the invocation, or supply it later. It relies on Alex's Speech To Text to parse the phrase, so it can be a bit odd a times.

Usefulness: 1 out of 5. This is a bit better than Alexa's default search. However, the headlines can be a bit long, and five of them drag on a bit. There's no option to list less, more, or the next five. There's also no way to actually hear the article. I was able to cut and paste the headline from the companion app and find it after searching. But that takes me away from the skill.



Novelty: 3 out of 5. This is a nice idea. Sort of obvious in retrospect. But all the better to find something obvious no one has done before.



Overall: 2 out of 5. It's a nice start, but the functionality is too limited (and the pronunciation too difficult to understand) to be of much use in its present form.