This article was published on May 11, 2017

Apple patent details how Siri could work in noisy environments


Apple patent details how Siri could work in noisy environments

Apple is working on a way for you to control Siri in iMessage, rather than with your voice. The company has applied for a patent that lets you use the digital assistant without having to talk to it.

Here’s how Apple describes it in the patent:

User input can be received and in response to receiving the user input, the user input can be displayed as a first message in the GUI. A contextual state of the electronic device corresponding to the displayed user input can be stored. The process can cause an action to be performed in accordance with a user intent derived from the user input. A response based on the action can be displayed as a second message in the GUI.

In case you find that a little hard to understand (I know I did), this means the digital assistant (Siri), will perform an action in response to your input in a text conversation, then respond to the text.

The most obvious use for this is environments where talking to Siri aloud is impractical — a very loud environment where Siri can’t hear you, like a sporting event; or a very quiet one where you can’t speak, such as a library (though definitely not a movie theater, you heathen).

This might also be helpful for hearing-impaired users or those with speech impediments who might have trouble interacting with the audio-focused assistant.

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