The race to build the next Jarvis has intensified in the last 6 months.
Amazon’s (presumed) Christmas Alexa sales – alongside wide acclaim for Google’s Assistant – have opened a few eyes in the tech world, and now Apple is starting to make noises about AI.
A report from Digitimes yesterday cites a source claiming that Apple is working on an improved version of Siri. As it should be, because both Google’s Assistant and Alexa are spreading their AI to other, non-mobile devices. Siri could become irrelevant with a year if Apple doesn’t act quickly.
Siri. Image credit: Jay McGregor
So what could Apple do to gain a small advantage? Focus all its efforts on three features Alexa and Assistant currently lack.
Adjusting settings with voice commands
This is pet peeve of mine. It should be easy to change basic settings – other than toggling volume – on your device with a voice command. Imagine asking Siri how to change your notification profile, or immediately back up all of your data with a single command.
On Alexa, I can’t download a skill with voice and with Assistant I can’t dim the brightness of my screen. Giving Siri either of these abilities would be a key differentiator.
Ordering items without some kind of subscription
You’ll need a Prime subscription to buy items on Amazon via Alexa. Apple could gain a small advantage here by making it easy to buy Apple products through Siri without the need for a subscription. Obviously the Apple store and Amazon aren’t comparable, so how about Apple partnering up with a third-party retailer for Siri-only purchases?
Monetise and expand support for third party apps
iOS 10 already supports third-party app integration with Siri and allows developers to make money from their work, so it already has an advantage over Alexa in that sense. An improvement would be if Siri supported third-party music, weather and other non-Apple software. This would open up the field and entice developers to make voice apps and get a slice of that huge Apple user-base.
Dwindling interest
There are huge opportunities to make significant gains on the competition for Apple, but there’s also a lot of ground to make up. Amazon had the benefit of little competition when it launched Alexa, that won’t be the case for Apple in the next few months as Samsung is also poised to launch its own AI tech. If either company wants to stand out, it would do well to capitalise on Alexa and Assistant’s faults.
The other major challenge facing voice apps is the dwindling interest people show in features outside of streaming music and asking basic questions. A new report from VoiceLabs revelas worryingly low retention rates after people enable new voice apps (around 3%), which presents a fresh challenge to developers.
If Apple can produce genuinely useful voice apps, software that people can integrate into their daily lives then the disadvantage of being late to market will quickly shrink.
One big issue for a voice-controlled future is whether or not the government will have access to your recordings? There’s a good chance it will under new legislation.
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Jay McGregor is the editor-in-chief of the YouTube channel, Point. He also reports for The Guardian, TechRadar, BBC Radio and others. Follow on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/PointReport
