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Become a Six Colors member to read exclusive posts, get our weekly podcast, join our community, and more!By Dan Moren for Macworld
To move forward, Siri needs a lot of attention
Apple recently confirmed that it bought Inductiv, a machine-learning company based in Canada; the staff from the firm will apparently be working on improving Siri. This is just the latest in a line of acquisitions of AI and machine-learning companies that Apple has bought over the last few years, many of which likely had the company’s voice assistant in mind.
The future can’t come too soon.
Way back in 2015, before Apple’s annual September event, I put forth that what Apple’s Siri (then a mere four years old) needed was a major “2.0” push, taking a hard look at the virtual agent from the ground up.
Almost five years later, not only has no such initiative ever really happened, but Siri seems to have languished, receiving updates only in fits and starts. While Apple hasn’t forgotten about it, the company seems to have, by and large, deemed Siri “good enough” and moved on to the next thing.
This year, as Apple gets ready to take the wraps off iPadOS and iOS 14, the next version of macOS, and perhaps even an update to the HomePod, it seems like a good time to revisit the places where Siri still falls short.