Soon You Will Just Have To Say ‘Siri’ To Trigger Apple’s Digital Assistant. The change is coming as part of iOS17.
Apple announced today it will change Siri’s trigger command from “Hey Siri” to just “Siri.” The company says it will make it easier for users to start the virtual assistant on iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices and follows a report from Bloomberg in November that Apple was working on moving Siri to a single wake word.
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Moving to a single wake word for the assistant marks a significant shift on the tech side of things. Apple had been using “Hey Siri” since the launch of the virtual assistant since both the engineering and training work required has proven to be much easier with a two-word trigger phrase.
Amazon already lets users trigger its Alexa assistant using both “Hey Alexa” or just “Alexa.” On the other hand, Google will most certainly continue to work with the “Hey Google” or “OK Google” commands instead of just a single “Google,” because its brand has become a transitive verb and using the single wake word could prove to be a nightmare, triggering the voice assistant every time Google would be mentioned during conversations.
Siri was first introduced back in October 4, 2011.