Apple, never one to waste a syllable, appears ready to give its voice assistant the cold shoulder—at least when it comes to formal greetings. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has practically set up camp inside Apple’s R&D whisper mill, the company is preparing to drop the phrase “Hey Siri” in favor of the sleeker one-word summons “Siri.” Because clearly, two words are so 2011.
If this change sounds minor, then you’ve never tried teaching a computer to understand panicked mumbling from across the room while the dishwasher is roaring like a jet engine. Apple engineers have reportedly spent months fiddling with the AI’s ears, trying to train it to recognize “Siri” in all its many accents and regional twangs, from deep Texan drawls to fast-talking Brooklyn ramble. It’s not so much about removing “hey” as it is about giving Siri the listening skills of a therapist with impeccable hearing.
The feature would bring Apple’s polite assistant in line with Amazon’s Alexa, which has long been summoned without preamble unless you’re the kind of person who still says “dear television” before turning it on. Microsoft’s Cortana tried something similar a few years ago, though that initiative now resides in the great digital assistant retirement home, somewhere between Clippy and Google Inbox.
Speaking of which, Apple is also reportedly hard at work on making Siri smarter, at least smarter than she is now which is not a particularly high bar. The goal, it seems, is to integrate Siri more deeply with third-party apps and services, enabling conversations that feel less like a game of 20 Questions and more like a mildly competent intern who never takes vacation days.
The change is expected to roll out sometime in 2023 or 2024 depending on the usual variables—namely whether Siri actually understands what you are saying and whether Apple can give her a personality upgrade that does not involve reciting Wikipedia articles in a vaguely robotic monotone.
In the future, calling out with desperate urgency across the living room will no longer require formality—just name recognition and a hint of hope.
Now, instead of saying “Hey Siri,” you can just say “Siri,” because apparently we are all on a first-name basis now.