Apple is working on a project to simplify the “Hey Siri” trigger phrase to just “Siri.” Also: The company’s ad expansion gets a soccer spin, more executives are departing, and Qualcomm lives to see another day in the iPhone.
Last week in Power On: Apple gears up to launch its next crop of Macs early next year.
Today, often the quickest way to launch Siri on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and HomePod is to use the cue “Hey Siri.” Now Apple is aiming to make that process a bit simpler.
The company is working on an initiative to drop the “Hey” in the trigger phrase so that a user only needs to say “Siri”—along with a command. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work.
Apple has been working on the change for several months and—if all goes to plan—hopes to roll out the switch either next year or the year after. The company has been testing the simplified wake word with employees and collecting the necessary training data.
The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase “Siri” in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words—“Hey Siri”—increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal.
Apple has also been engineering further changes. It will integrate the voice assistant deeper into third-party apps and services and improve its ability to understand users and take the correct course of action.
It’s no secret that—while Siri has improved over the past few years—the system can still often misunderstand users or take the wrong course of action on a request. The pace of improvements also hasn’t always kept up with the competition.
If successful, the shift from “Hey Siri” to “Siri” would match Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa, which requires to users to simply say “Alexa” rather than “Hey Alexa.” Google requires the prompt “OK Google” or “Hey Google,” but has been working to let users make follow-up requests without repeating the wake word.
By removing the “Hey” in “Hey Siri,” Apple would also, in turn, speed up back-to-back requests. The company has recently made a few other tweaks to Siri, including redesigning the interface on the Apple TV as part of tvOS 16.1.
Before winding down its own voice assistant, Cortana, Microsoft Corp. made a similar change. In 2018, that company switched its wake words from “Hey Cortana” to just “Cortana” on smart speakers.
For me, an even better change would be Apple allowing users—by voice—to specify which device they want to trigger. Let me take out the world’s smallest violin here for owners of multiple Apple devices, but the company should really allow users to specify if they want to trigger their iPhone, iPad or HomePod for Siri.
The next step in Apple’s ad expansion: Major League Soccer games. The company sees its upcoming streaming partnership with Major League Soccer as the next outlet for its push into advertising.
Apple is building an ad network that will accompany its MLS programming when the season kicks off in late February. The company’s ad chief has begun negotiating deals with sponsors and other advertisers for the service. The partnership will see MLS games stream in a dedicated subscription package, the paid Apple TV+ service and for free in the TV app on Apple devices.
Apple is aiming to push ads to all three of those. Looking into the future, the company also is eyeing an expansion of ads into Apple Maps and the storefronts for Podcasts and Books. Another place that would theoretically make sense (in light of its new ad network): an ad-supported version of TV+ that could rival Netflix, Hulu and Disney+.
Qualcomm lives to fight another year (or two) inside of the iPhone. In November 2021, Qualcomm Inc. all but confirmed what had long been expected: Apple is preparing to phase the company’s modem chips out of the design of the iPhone. At the time, the chipmaker said that it expected to only supply Apple with about 20% of the components in 2023 iPhones.
This past week, that prediction was changed: Qualcomm now believes it will supply the majority of Apple’s modems in 2023. In fact, the company implied it might do so until 2025. That means Qualcomm will continue to get a solid revenue stream from Apple’s large iPhone volumes. It also suggests Apple’s in-house initiative is running behind.
In 2018, during a feud with Qualcomm over patents, Apple started kicking around the idea of adopting its own modem design. In 2019, the two companies settled, ensuring that Apple would get 5G modems in time for the iPhone 12. That same year, Apple acquired Intel Corp.’s modem unit.
In 2020, Johny Srouji, Apple’s chip development chief, told employees that work on an in-house modem was well underway. But in recent months, I’ve heard that the project has faced challenges, including prototypes overheating. That makes the launch delay fairly unsurprising. Still, it’s good to have confirmation from the company directly involved.
Peloton gives another disappointing forecast but says its turnaround is on track. Peloton this past week said its revenue would drop about 37% annually in the current quarter and that revenue last quarter fell 23%. Sales of hardware products and app subscriptions also declined.
But Peloton, and Chief Executive Officer Barry McCarthy, looked at its financial state as good news: The company believes it is close to turning around the ship, to use McCarthy’s analogy, and that growth and stability aren’t too far away for the former pandemic highflier.
Its current strategy still raises questions, though. As I wrote here several months ago, Peloton’s best bet may be dropping its hardware business—a problem in terms of margins, costs and revenue—and focusing entirely on content and subscriptions. The company could probably build a pretty solid business by pushing its classes to gyms and third-party hardware.
If all else fails, I do think a Netflix Inc. takeover of Peloton would be an interesting scenario. Netflix could acquire Peloton’s content on the cheap, make it part of its subscription and then wind down the company’s hardware. Suddenly, they’d have a viable competitor to Apple’s Fitness+ service.
Now I have also reported that Apple’s top executives in charge of the online store and information systems are stepping down. Anna Matthiasson, the vice president of online retail, is leaving her position after three years in that role, while Mary Demby—a three-decade Apple veteran and the company’s chief information officer—is retiring. Karen Rasmussen is replacing Matthiasson, while a new CIO hasn’t yet been named.
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