Lenovo-owned Motorola has announced a new partnership with Amazon that’ll see the online retailer’s voice assistant Alexa offered on the smartphone maker’s flagship Moto Z device via a Mod. It’s a concept at the moment, rather than something we can get our hands on, but it’s no doubt going to irk Android-maker Google, which would doubtless prefer to see it Google Assistant as the primary voice aid on Motorola’s devices.
At the same time, the company has promised a slew of new Mods, the add-ons that expand the Moto Z’s capabilities by attaching to its rear magnetically. While LG has abandoned the modular system it introduced with the LG G5 (having retired it with the new, unibody G6), Motorola is fully embracing the idea.
Next month it’ll begin selling a power pack Mod that’ll provide a 50% charge for the Moto Z, complete with a smart-charging mechanism that detects the level of charge on the device and recharges it when most efficient to do so.
Soon thereafter Moto Z owners can look forward to a charging adaptor for phones or Mods, a wireless-charging Mod, a turbo charger (that’ll provide eight hours of useable power in 15 minutes) and a game pad Mod with four speakers, lighting, vibration functionality and its own battery.
It remains to be seen how many of the proposed Mods will actually make it to market, but there’s no doubt Motorola would like to see as many of them become reality as possible. If they do it’ll make what’s already the only attractive modular system on the market that much more enticing.
