Gurman: Apple Plans To Replace & Shorten "Hey, Siri" Command

When Apple first presented the iPhone 4S, Apple's new voice assistant, "Siri", made quite the sensation – although the voice assistant was initially only capable of carrying out rudimentary tasks and responding to a few relevant commands and inputs from users with jokes, Apple has since made several improvements to the technology. Now, Siri can comprehensively answer more complex questions and even differentiate different between users by their voice on the HomePod. The Apple TV will also receive the latter function soon and the command to awaken and activate Siri should soon become even more convenient.

Apple Wants To Remove "Hey" From "Hey, Siri"
Quite some time has passed since the days when users would have to physically grasp their iDevice to activate Siri. The phrase "Hey, Siri" is sufficient to awaken the voice assistant, as long as the device in use is at least an iPhone 6S or newer. Some older iPhones still need to be hooked up to a power supply to respond to the command. In a recent edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Bloomberg journalist and well-known Apple connoisseur Mark Gurman stated that Cupertino plans to shorten the aforementioned activation command. The company would like to remove the first word of the command, reducing the entirety to a simple "Siri" – and soon, this should command should be capable of capturing the voice assistant's attention. According to Gurman, this change represents a significant technical challenge for Apple, and will require a significant amount of AI training and engineering.





A Difficult Undertaking – & More Plans For Siri
Google's voice assistant responds to only "Okay, Google" and "Hey, Google" – while Amazon's will respond to a simple "Alexa". Unlike "Alexa", however, "Siri" consists of two very similar sounding syllables, such that recognition without further processing is quite an elaborate task. Per Gurman, Apple hopes to release the shortened activation command in 2023 or the beginning of 2024. Furthermore, the company also plans an expanded release and compatibility of the voice assistant for integration with third-party apps.