Oliver Haslam·

Apple To Drop ‘Hey’ From ‘Hey Siri’ At WWDC, Gurman Says

Apple’s WWDC 2023 event will take place on Monday, June 5 and we’re already expecting plenty of big announcements. Now, a new report suggests a Siri-specific change is in the works.

Writing in a tweet, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman referenced a report of his from November in which he said that Apple is considering dropping the “Hey Siri” wake command in favor of something new.

Now, Gurman suggests that might actually happen as part of the iOS 17 rollout that will happen later this year. The iOS 17 software will be announced at WWDC.

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.

Gurman went on to say that the issue is making sure that Siri can understand the wake phrase and given the fact it would be a single phrase, it might struggle. Siri is also a word that can sound very different in various languages — something that “OK Google,” and “Alexa” with have to content with.

Apple’s WWDC is also expected to see the Reality Pro AR/VR headset debut alongside a new 15-inch MacBook Air and possibly an updated Mac Studio.

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