Apple TV May Get A Smart Speaker Version That Competes With Amazon Echo

The world of digital assistants is starting to really heat up, with Amazon Echo currently leading the way. That may all change later this year when the recently-announced Google Home starts to become a reality, and even Apple is said to be about to enter the market with its very own hardware and Siri implementation. To that point, a new report claims that Apple’s entry will not include a new type of hardware but rather a refreshed Apple TV with full-fledged Siri built right in.

Anyone with the latest Apple TV can already take advantage of Siri to some degree, but this latest report says that the next Apple TV, said to be already in development, will feature hardware that will make the device capable of competing with Amazon’s Echo and even Google Home.

Apple-TV-Siri

That new hardware is said to include the prerequisite speaker and microphone combination that would be needed in order to listen to and subsequently respond to commands, while a new and beefier computational implementation is also said to be needed. Considering the latest Apple TV packs the A8 CPU, which is more than capable of keeping Siri chugging along just fine, we’re not quite sure what that hardware may be.

The company will build on its enhancements to the Apple TV announced last year, which brought the Siri virtual assistant to the set-top box. A new version of the Apple TV will solve problems with the existing box and remote control, a source familiar with the matter claims.

“They want Apple TV to be just the hub of everything”

Apple is believed to have a Siri SDK in the works, and with iOS 10 set to be outed at the upcoming WWDC, it’s possible that additional Siri functionality is already on its way to the existing Apple TV. That doesn’t mean it will be capable of competing with the Echo, though – it still won’t have that microphone or speaker – but any additional functionality for Apple’s little black hockey puck is more than welcome.

But what we really want is the unannounced, possibly not even real, Amazon Echo-beating version. That sounds like it could be awesome!

(Source: VentureBeat)

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