Siri may lose the 'hey' in Apple's iOS 17 changes

Siri

The "Hey Siri" command has been ingrained into many iPhone and iPad users as the way to start asking Siri a question. If a late Friday rumor is true, users may not need to say "Hey" anymore.

Tweeting on Friday evening, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that a major project to change the "Hey Siri" trigger phrase to just "Siri" may have come to fruition, According to Gurman, it's something to look out for as a possible announcement during WWDC.

Gurman previously discussed the project in November 2022, with engineers changing a lot of the "underlying engineering" to get it to work. The problem had multiple facets, including adopting it for accents, the detection of a two-syllable trigger word instead of a longer phrase, and considerable retraining of the AI.

The comment was seemingly backed up by thread on Weibo spotted by leaker "Shrimp Apple Pro" and posted to Twitter. The thread mentions "Siri's wake-up method" would change from "Hey Siri" to just "Siri."

The Weibo text also mentions how iOS 17 has been "Androidized," with more design changes. This includes more lock screen widgets, an upgraded Smart Island, a reworked Control Center, and dynamic display support for desktop widgets.