Gurman: Apple May Announce Drop of 'Hey Siri' Trigger Phrase at WWDC

Apple may announce a major change to Siri that would move away from the "Hey ‌Siri‌" trigger phrase currently required to invoke the virtual assistant hands-free at next week's WWDC keynote, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

siri phil schiller
In a new tweet, Gurman reiterated that the change to the ‌Siri‌ trigger phrase may be among next week's announcements. In November, Gurman reported that Apple is working on a way for ‌Siri‌ to be able to understand and respond to commands without the need to use "Hey ‌Siri‌" as a trigger-phrase. Instead, users will simply need to say "‌Siri‌."

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.

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.

The change would bring ‌Siri‌ closer to Amazon's voice assistant, which can be triggered simply by beginning a command with "Alexa." At the time, Gurman added that Apple is also working on deeper ‌Siri‌ integrations with third-party apps and services to provide better assistance thanks to additional context.

Gurman initially said that the changes to ‌Siri‌ are expected to roll out sometime in 2023 or 2024, but his latest tweet suggests that it remains a distinct possibility for WWDC next week. Apple's mixed-reality headset is rumored to feature voice controls, so improvements to ‌Siri‌ would likely go hand-in-hand with the announcement of the new device.

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Rumored to Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update. Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far. Redesigned Camera App A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19. On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Latest iPhone 17 Series CAD Images in Line With Redesign Rumors

Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now. Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
apple intelligence black

These New Apple Intelligence Features Are Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April. Priority Notifications Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
iphone 16e usb c feature

Apple Provides Reason for iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe

Friday February 28, 2025 4:39 am PST by
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone. According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
Apple AirPort Routers

Apple's Discontinued Line of AirPort Wi-Fi Routers Could Return in an Unexpected Way

Saturday March 1, 2025 10:00 am PST by
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Apple offered a line of Wi-Fi routers that it referred to as AirPort base stations. There was a standard AirPort Express, a higher-end AirPort Extreme with more advanced networking features, and an AirPort Time Capsule that doubled as an external storage drive for backing up a Mac with Time Machine. Apple discontinued the AirPort line in 2018, but the company...
apple c1

How Fast is Apple's First-Ever 5G Modem? The Results Are Surprising

Friday February 28, 2025 10:08 am PST by
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected. While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
Apple MacBook Air 2 up hero 240304 feature

New MacBook Air Announcement Reportedly 'Imminent' — Here's When

Sunday March 2, 2025 5:40 am PST by
With the iPhone 16e now in the hands of customers, Apple reportedly plans to move on to its next product announcement in the coming days. Apple plans to announce new MacBook Air models with the M4 chip "as early as this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "I expect the M4 MacBook Air to be introduced as early as this week," said Gurman, in a post shared on X today. "Inventory has ...

Top Rated Comments

iBreatheApple Avatar
23 months ago
Siri can’t even understand basic phrases she understood two years ago, so… Good luck. I’m really getting cynical with it. Siri feels nearly a decade behind the competition in terms of usefulness of practical day-to-day inquiries.
Score: 77 Votes (Like | Disagree)
haydn! Avatar
23 months ago
Siri’s problems are not in how you get its attention… it’s everything after that. ?‍♂️
Score: 64 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tofupunch Avatar
23 months ago
How about we make Siri more reliable, useful, etc. in any quantifiable way before we add complexity to the trigger phrase...??‍♂️
Score: 57 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tomtad Avatar
23 months ago
It’s worth keeping in mind it’s not the number of words but the syllables that is important. Alexa has 3, Hey Siri has 3, these can be more easily identified and is the reason Amazon chose the Alexa name. Given Siri only has 2 makes this much harder.

Also please please please can we have different phrases for different devices. So tired of wanting to talk to my HomePod and my phone or Mac then picks it up. So annoying.
Score: 49 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wikiverse Avatar
23 months ago
Great news! Now Siri can be more like my wife: Triggered more frequently when I say words like 'Serious' instead of her name, interrupt me and then provide absolutely no useful information whatsoever.
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
smoothride Avatar
23 months ago
Lemme guess. You’ll need the shiny new iPhone 15 just to be able to do that!???
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)