Apple to Change Siri’s Trigger by Dropping ‘Hey;’ But Why Is Apple Changing it?

Apple is reportedly working to change Alexa's "Hey Siri" trigger by dropping "Hey." But the change is likely to take place either next year or 2024, Mark Gurman said.

In his tweet, Gurman announced: "Apple is working on a big change for Siri..."

The Cupertino tech company has started the project in the past few months, trying to simplify Siri's trigger phase.

Make it Simple

Currently, users still use "Hey Siri" to launch Siri on iPad, iPhone, Mac, HomePod, and Apple Watch. Apple is changing that to make it simple.

While changing the trigger appears simple, it is not that easy in this case.

To tweak the trigger, according to Gurman, is a challenge that needs "a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work."

Siri has no problem picking up, and understanding, the present two-word trigger. But a single word "Siri" in different languages and diverse accents could be a challenge to Apple's digital assistant.

Catch up

After working for several months on the project, the company has been conducting trials of the simplified trigger among its employees.

The change, if it goes through, would put Apple in step with its rivals - Amazon and Google - who already had their digital assistants waking up to one-word triggers.

Amazon's Alexa would already respond to "Alexa" instead of "Hey, Alexa."

While users of Google still have to say "Ok Google" or "Hey Google," the assistant can record back-to-back commands without the need to repeat the trigger word each time.

This means you don't need to say the name of the digital assistant each time you want to make a follow-up. You can ask the assistant for succeeding commands, like if it is going to rain without you saying again "Hey Google" again.

Third-party Apps

Gurman said the company is also working to integrate the assistant with third-party services. Apple is hoping a deeper integration would enable the digital assistant to better understand the users and take action accordingly.

Although Siri has greatly improved since its birth, the assistant still has its misses.

Removing "Hey" would also improve the back-to-back requests, Gurman said.

Apple had lately made a few tweaks to Siri in the redesign of Apple TV's interface, which was part of tvOS 16.1.

These changes, he said, could take a while to roll out. Siri's tweak is likely to happen next year or in 2024.

Better Change

Cortana and Microsoft had also implemented similar initiatives before both companies retired their voice assistants. Cortana had successfully tweaked the wake words "Hey Cortana" to simply "Cortana" on smart speakers.

If Apple will finally succeed in changing the trigger of Siri, a better change would still be the one that allows users to tell the assistant which devices they want to wake up.

The company should allow users the freedom to choose either their iPhone or iPad for Siri to trigger, Gurman said.

Apple's greater challenge is not only in simplifying the trigger for Siri. It also allows users to have greater freedom to choose the way they want to go.