 |
| Apple is making it easier to connect with Siri its digital assistant |
According to a new report from Bloomberg on Sunday, Apple is making it easier to invoke its smart assistant Siri by shortening response sentences.
The agency stated through its Apple-related Power On newsletter that the company's engineers were preparing to shorten the response phrase "Hey Siri" to the name of the Siri assistant.
Before making verbal requests, all users of Apple devices must contact the smart assistant: Hey Siri. While saying just two words seems easy to many users, Apple is trying to reduce the workload by narrowing down sentences to one word: Siri.
According to Bloomberg, shortening the set of answers from two words to one is not so easy because it forces Apple engineers to retrain the AI along with other engineering work.
It's hard to teach Siri to understand not just her name, but all languages, dialects, and dialects, especially since it's not as easy for speech recognition systems to understand two-word sentences rather than simple two-syllable words. The pronunciation is similar. In contrast, a three-syllable response word is easily recognizable as Alexa because of its length and the vocal variation of the syllables.
The purpose of the move is believed to be Apple's attempt to differentiate itself from other companies that offer digital assistants like Google by making it easier to connect with its assistant.
Google still relies on OK Google and Hey Google, and if it wanted to make similar changes, it would run into the same problems as Apple, noting that it shortened the sentence to Google only for subsequent requests after the first oral question.
The work is reportedly still ongoing, but rolling it out to users may take some time, and employees have also been testing the changes for months to collect training data.
It is believed that a short-term response could be introduced as late as 2023 or early 2024. Part of the reason for the slow progress is also believed to be Apple's strong commitment to user privacy, which affects the development of new digital assistants.
Responsive Shortcuts isn't the only development Apple is working on, as it's also said to be trying to make Siri work better with third-party apps and services, making it a more ubiquitous assistant with better access.