Apple’s latest plan for Siri sounds quite brave
A spy in every home…
Do you ever have that thing when one of your Siri enabled devices alerts itself with a cheery “hiya” or a response to a question you haven’t asked simply because you use words that sound like “Hey Siri”? Well, Apple may have a plan to take this one stage further, dispensing with the word “Hey” so that all you’ll have to say is “Siri”. Which doesn’t sound like bleary, leery, silly, sorry, or savory.
Sorry not Siri
This has the potential to make sense, of course. It really depends on the extent to which Apple can improve word recognition accuracy for the word Siri. This will almost certainly require additional setup with users repeating the word time after time.
Hey Siri, is the traditional Siri wake phrase, though every user knows it can be invoked accidentally sometimes.
Reducing the phrase to simply “Siri” is a bit of a step – though when you aren’t heard the first time it can swiftly become tedious to repeat the instruction again and again.
Apple isn’t fast-tracking this change to its smart assistant tech, according to Bloomberg, but it is considering it.
Perhaps Apple has something better in mind?
There is a precedent for the change – you only need to use the phrase “Alexa” to make Amazon Echo respond. On Google systems you can create some Quick Phrases for some tasks.
Might Apple intend making Siri a little smarter in a similar way?
It would, after all, be neat to be able to define your own term to ignite a Siri search. “Hey, Nostradamus,” for example, or even the welcome return of Jeeves.
[Also read: 100+ (useful) tasks Siri does for you on HomePod, HomePod mini]
Bloomberg doesn’t know, but it does tell us the change is in early testing and probably won’t be ready for a year or so.
That timeline suggests this may be one of the features Apple hopes to weave into its devices starting in 2024. I’d ask Siri about it, but it won’t say.
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