Siri was introduced on iPhones back in 2011, a half decade ago, and has since made her way to AppleTV and Apple Watch. Rumors of the iconic virtual assistant showing up on the Mac have persisted ever since her 2011 mobile launch. There’s been at least some speculation of her inclusion in every OS X release since.
We don’t know for sure that this time is different, but Gurman’s account has a lot of details. For example:
- Siri will live as a menubar icon at the top-right of your Mac, next to the Spotlight and Notification Center icons.
- Siri will be visually represented by a dark, transparent interface at the top-right of the screen.
- Users can set a keyboard shortcut for Siri in a new dedicated Systems Preferences pane
- When plugged into power, users can say “Hey Siri” to activate the virtual assistant, just like on the iPhone and iPad.
You can see an artist’s mockup of the interface at 9to5mac.
There have been indications of Siri coming to the desktop for a while now. Apple applied for a related patent back in 2014, and Apple has reportedly internally tested a desktop version of Siri for years.
If Siri does show up on the Mac, Cortana’s inclusion on Windows 10 may be part of the reason. Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, along with Google’s Now, are all trying to lock in as many active users now before virtual assistants become a major part of the way we all use computers. The competition is only going to get more intense, because all three companies see the stakes are high.
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