I love my Echo but it has a couple weak points, all of which could be solved by a competent platform. I can't, for instance, just tell Alexa to play new podcast

I love my Echo but it has a couple weak points, all of which could be solved by a competent platform. I can't, for instance, just tell Alexa to play new podcasts from my lists or directly from the net (except through TuneIn, which sucks.) It doesn't work with many home automation devices. It's AI is not that great when it comes to non-Amazon services. I'm hopeful the Android platform will make this a better device.