Apple could announce a major change to Siri that would do away with the “Hey Siri” wake-up phrase currently required to invoke the virtual assistant.
in a new tweetBloomberg’s Mark Gurman reiterated that Siri’s wake-up phrase change could be among next week’s announcements.
In November, Gurman reported that Apple is working on a way for Siri to understand and respond to commands without the need to use “Hey Siri” as a wake-up phrase. In your place, users will just have to say “Siri”.
The company is working on an initiative to remove the “Hey” from the trigger phrase, so the user only needs to say “Siri” along with a command. While it may seem like an insignificant change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work.
The complexity is that Siri is able to understand the phrase “Siri” in many different accents and dialects. Having two words – “Hey Siri” – increases the likelihood that the system will correctly pick up the signal.
The change would bring Siri closer to Amazon’s voice assistant, which can be activated simply by initiating a command with “Alexa”. At the time, Gurman added that Apple is also working on deeper Siri integrations with third-party apps and services to better provide help with added context.
Gurman initially said that the Siri changes should roll out in 2023 or 2024, but his latest tweet suggests it’s still a distinct possibility for next week’s WWDC.
Apple’s mixed reality headset is rumored to include voice controls, so Siri’s improvements likely go hand in hand with the new device’s announcement.