A dramatic shift could be on the horizon for Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, as it may soon do away with its familiar “Hey Siri” activation phrase. This pivotal change, teased by Bloomberg’s technology reporter Mark Gurman, is expected to be unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week.
The new frontier for Siri
Gurman has reasserted that this crucial alteration to Siri’s activation protocol might be part of the upcoming announcements at WWDC. Previously, in November, he hinted at Apple’s ongoing efforts to refine Siri’s responsiveness without the prerequisite command “Hey Siri.” Instead, a simple utterance of “Siri” should suffice.
Apple is striving to eradicate the ‘Hey’ part of the trigger phrase, meaning users will only have to say “Siri,” followed by their command. This tweak, although seemingly minor, presents a technical obstacle necessitating substantial AI training and comprehensive foundational work.
“Hey Siri” – A challenge and competitive advantage?
The main difficulty lies in Siri’s capability to recognize the stand-alone term “Siri” across a myriad of accents and dialects. Having a dual-word command, like “Hey Siri,” enhances the accuracy of the system’s recognition.
This proposed change nudges Siri towards the functionality of Amazon’s Alexa, which operates upon direct command, no prefix needed. Additionally, Gurman highlighted that Apple is exploring more profound Siri integrations with third-party apps and services for enhanced assistance via extra context.
Initially, Gurman predicted these Siri modifications to materialize sometime between 2023 and 2024. However, his recent hint alludes to a possible revelation at the imminent WWDC. Especially considering the rumors surrounding Apple’s mixed-reality headset, rumoured to feature voice controls, a more intuitive Siri could be the perfect pairing.
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