Apple to Change Activation Phrase of Siri

Bloomberg insider Mark Gurman in his latest weekly Power On newsletter has reported that Apple is working on changing the activation phrase of its voice assistant from “Hey Siri” to simply “Siri.”

Apple has been working on the feature for the past few months. It's scheduled to appear next year or the year after.

The difficulty with changing the phrase is that the voice assistant has to wake up recognising just one word in different languages and dialects, while having two words increases the likelihood that Siri will be able to recognise the command.

Apple also intends to integrate the voice assistant deeper into third-party apps and services and improve its ability to understand users and make good decisions.

The move to a single word for the voice assistant will allow Apple to equal Amazon, whose voice assistant Alexa has long been awakened by the command “Alexa” instead of “Hey Alexa.” The innovation will also bypass Google's voice assistant, which requires “OK Google” or “Hey Google.”