Apple took a noticeable amount of time to talk about various new iOS 17 features coming to eligible iPhone models. Among all the major announcements, it talked about a new change that many of you might have missed as it did so only for a couple of seconds. Apple has changed the way you can trigger Siri which is now faster and simpler. It has also added the ability to ask back-to-back questions to the digital assistant.
A New Way to Activate Siri
While wrapping up the iOS 17 portions of the keynote, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federeghi revealed they have now dropped “Hey” from the “Hey Siri” trigger phrase. It is now possible to activate Siri by simply saying “Siri” and you can proceed to ask your question.
Apple has been using the two-word trigger phrase for Siri since the time it first arrived on the scene. The decision to go for just the “Siri” phrase was taken to make it simpler and faster for users to activate the digital assistant. It is similar to how you can say just “Alexa” to trigger Amazon’s virtual assistant on supported devices including the whole Echo lineup.
The change appears to be a simple one from a user’s point of view but it took complex under-the-hood engineering changes and extensive testing to make it work. This is because it is much easier to understand a two-word phrase for the digital assistant, especially across different accents and dialects. The whole process becomes trickier when it has just one word to detect it right. We first heard about the change being under development in November 2022 and about half a year later, it is finally here.
Ask Multiple Questions to Siri
There is one more change coming to Siri that will slightly change the way you interact with it. Apple has now made it possible for users to ask Siri multiple questions without saying the trigger word every time. You can now just say “Siri” only once to activate the assistant and go on to ask back-to-back questions.
Both these new Siri features are available across all devices with the latest software update. Unfortunately, Apple did not bring any changes to the way Siri responds to user queries which many enthusiasts might be expecting after seeing all the AI developments like ChatGPT in recent times.
