Gurman: Apple May Announce Drop of 'Hey Siri' Trigger Phrase at WWDC

[MacRumors]

Apple may announce a major change to Siri that would move away from the "Hey Siri" trigger phrase currently required to invoke the virtual assistant hands-free at next week's WWDC keynote, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

In a new tweet, Gurman reiterated that the change to the Siri trigger phrase may be among next week's announcements. In November, Gurman reported that Apple is working on a way for Siri to be able to understand and respond to commands without the need to use "Hey Siri" as a trigger-phrase. Instead, users will simply need to say "Siri."

The company is working on an initiative to drop the "Hey in the trigger phrase so that a user only needs to say "Siri"—along with a command. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work.

The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase "Siri" in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words — "Hey Siri" — increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal.

The change would bring Siri closer to Amazon's voice assistant, which can be triggered simply by beginning 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 provide better assistance thanks to additional context.

Gurman initially said that the changes to Siri are expected to roll out sometime in 2023 or 2024, but his latest tweet suggests that it remains a distinct possibility for WWDC next week. Apple's mixed-reality headset is rumored to feature voice controls, so improvements to Siri would likely go hand-in-hand with the announcement of the new device.

Article Link: Gurman: Apple May Announce Drop of 'Hey Siri' Trigger Phrase at WWDC

 

[iBreatheApple]

Siri can’t even understand basic phrases she understood two years ago, so… Good luck. I’m really getting cynical with it. Siri feels nearly a decade behind the competition in terms of usefulness of practical day-to-day inquiries.

 

[Tofupunch]

How about we make Siri more reliable, useful, etc. in any quantifiable way before we add complexity to the trigger phrase...🤦🏽‍♂️

 

[StoneJack]

Siri! Just drop!

 

[contacos]

Wow truely revolutionary

 

[wikiverse]

Great news! Now Siri can be more like my wife: Triggered more frequently when I say words like 'Serious' instead of her name, interrupt me and then provide absolutely no useful information whatsoever.

 

[daabido]

Can't innovate my arse!

Someone needs to take this old dog out behind the wood shed.

 

[Robert.Walter]

I’d prefer they just make it work better. Still kinda sucks doing the things it should do.

 

[tomtad]

It’s worth keeping in mind it’s not the number of words but the syllables that is important. Alexa has 3, Hey Siri has 3, these can be more easily identified and is the reason Amazon chose the Alexa name. Given Siri only has 2 makes this much harder.

Also please please please can we have different phrases for different devices. So tired of wanting to talk to my HomePod and my phone or Mac then picks it up. So annoying.

 

[haydn!]

Siri’s problems are not in how you get its attention… it’s everything after that. 🤦‍♂️

 

[zapmymac]

“I’m sorry I can’t do that right now.”

The majority of my requests that are informative. Shutting lights off/on/changing work pretty well for me though.


I want rock solid and accurate info when I ask her to look up a word or similar 🙏

 

[notjonyive]

Nice improvement but not really an announcement worth imo.
In Korea it is almost like this already. 시리야 ~ 'Siriya' is used.

 

[smoothride]

Lemme guess. You’ll need the shiny new iPhone 15 just to be able to do that!???

 

[newdeal]

awesome now the most useless virtual assistant in the world will be even more easily accidentally triggered to let me know that it doesn't understand what I am saying when I wasn't trying to ask it something in the first place since I knew it was hopeless that it would give me a useful response

 

[newdeal]

It’s worth keeping in mind it’s not the number of words but the syllables that is important. Alexa has 3, Hey Siri has 3, these can be more easily identified and is the reason Amazon chose the Alexa name. Given Siri only has 2 makes this much harder.

Also please please please can we have different phrases for different devices. So tired of wanting to talk to my HomePod and my phone or Mac then picks it up. So annoying.

would have been easier to just completely redesign it and also rename it while they are at it. I don't think Siri has any brand value and I don't think anyone uses it enough that it would be confusing calling it something else instead

 

[RiderX]

Hey, Tim Apple!

 

[twistedpixel8]

I feel like the whole point of “hey siri” was to make it complex enough to avoid accidental activations. I imagine “Siri” is going to be activating her all the god damn time, specially if you’re watching something Apple-related on TV.

 

[George Dawes]

Hey Siri , What's the Time ?

It doesn't look like it's going to rain today

Downhill from there on ....

 

[diddl14]

Can only hope this indicates a major Siri update that not just removes the "Hey" but a fundamental change in how Siri works, responds and performs. At the moment it's just painful.

 

[DocMultimedia]

Might have to spend 10 minutes training it to recognize your voice so 20 iphones won't get triggered at the same time. Just a guess. Then, of course, you'll have to do that every other week when an update breaks it. Oy.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I was watching TV a couple days ago and the actor was talking about serial numbers. Every time he said serial up popped Siri.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Looking forward to accidentally triggering it when saying, "Seriously" and "Series" etc.

 

[Your Royal Highness]

The headset is dead in the water if we need to rely on Siri.

 

[Schizoid]

Just drop the words “hey” and “Siri” … everyone else does!

 

[Skiefire]

Alexa triggered constantly in error partly because it’s just one word which can easily be inside other words/phrases. Dropping the hey will just increase Siris incorrect activations, which in my experience are incredibly rare.