It would appear that Apple has plans to turn Siri into a much more robust platform than it currently is. According to a report from The Information, the firm has plans to release a Siri-powered speaker, much like the Amazon Echo or Google Home.
Of course, you shouldn’t expect to hear about the Siri speaker at WWDC in June, as that’s more of a long-term goal. A shorter-term project will be to open up Apple’s voice assistant to third-party applications, something that was previously achieved by forging a partnership with the firm.
Both of these things would ultimately lead to a much more powerful Siri, which at the current time, is pretty much a way to talk to your Apple products and not much more. When compared with the things that can be done with Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant (Echo and Home are the hardware products where Alexa and Assistant are the platforms, respectively), Siri seems like a child waiting to grow up.
One of the reasons that Amazon’s Alexa has been so successful is its ability to integrate with third party applications. Adding a new “Skill” from the Alexa app offers over a thousand choices, from playing Jeopardy! to the ability to check your bank account and pay your credit card bill.
And then there’s Google’s Assistant, which is an evolved Google Now. One of the reasons that Now has been so successful is that Google gathers so much data about us. Google knows what information we want to see before we see it.
Currently, Siri offers neither of these things. If Apple wants Siri to be as useful as its competitors, it looks like it might be starting in the right place.
Source: The Information via The Verge
