Apple Plans To Replace “Hey Siri” with “Siri”

Apple is revamping the functionality of its Siri voice assistant in a major way. Currently, you have to say “Hey Siri” to activate the assistant, but that might change in the future. Bloomberg reported that Apple engineers are working on removing the “Hey” portion of the command. It is to make it possible to activate the assistant with just the word “Siri” followed by a command.

Mark Gurman of Bloomberg writes that “this is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work” in the most recent issue of his Power On newsletter. It’s been said that Apple has been working on this update for a while now, and that they hope to release it either next year or in 2024, depending on how things go with testing and development.

At the moment, Apple is conducting tests of this transformation with staff members and gathering the relevant training data as part of this process. One of the challenging task is to make sure that Siri recognize the wake word in a variety of dialects and accents.

Among Apple’s ongoing Siri enhancements is making it easier to use with third-party apps and services. According to yesterday’s article from Bloomberg, “It will integrate the voice assistant deeper into third-party apps and services and improve its ability to understand users and take the correct course of action”, by enhancing its integration with third-party apps and services.

Words From PhoneWorld

Apple’s plan to replace “Hey Siri” with just “Siri” as Siri’s wake phrase is not exactly shocking. That’s in line with Amazon’s offerings, where you may activate the assistant by just saying “Alexa,” rather than “Hey Alexa.” It would also give Apple an edge against Google, whose wake word is “Hey Google” or “OK Google”.

According to yesterday’s article, however, this is no easy task, and the transition requires extensive preparation and training. This is extremely important for Apple because Siri has a lot of room for error. That is especially when it is used with the HomePod.

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What do you think about this update from Apple? Will the benefits justify the effort, or will the complications be too much to bear?

Leave a comment below and let us know.