“This would make Siri more useful and address a big knock users and developers have had against the service”.
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Apple seems to be working on their own competitor to the Amazon’s Echo to give their consumers a Siri-powered speaker for the home, according to a report from today.
Before the news broke, Google was the first company to take on Amazon’s highly successful Echo smart speaker – a speaker with a multitasking virtual assistant named Alexa.
According to “a person with direct knowledge of the effort”, Apple could release the Siri software developer kit at its annual WWDC event in June.
However, in a different report from sources talking to VentureBeat, Apple isn’t now planning to release a standalone device, but is instead working on incorporating additional Siri technology into the Apple TV. Analysts suggests that it may come in the form of a refreshed Apple TV rather than a new product or hardware. The “Siri speaker” would function in the same general manner as other intelligent assistants, allowing users to listen to music, get news headlines, check the weather and so forth.
Apple-watcher and Network World contributor Yoni Heisler said that the unexpected popularity of the Echo has meant that the voice appliance market has gotten hot over the past couple of years. The tech giant also has plans to open the voice assistant to third-party apps.
Apple also plans to add Siri to Macs, possibly with the launch of OS X 10.12. While some third-party companies have gained access to Siri, such as Yelp, they’ve only done by way of specially crafted deals with Apple. One of the reasons that Now has been so successful is that Google gathers so much data about us.
Despite the success that Google’s Alexa has had, Apple’s speaker would have the advantage of being multilingual, as Alexa is limited to English while Siri comes with a variety of languages.
Apple may be considering opening up Siri to other developers.
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The Echo and Home are personal assistants, which are voice controlled.
