Apple have already reached out to the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari to bring Siri into the car and according to new sources, Apple is looking to expand partnerships further, especially for iOS 8. The partnership is looking to bring Siri to the small screen and optimise the technology for a small interface which could potentially be used in the iWatch.
Apple is working on ways to improve the search capabilities of Siri, its virtual assistant, by allowing it to point users to third-party apps, according to people familiar with the effort. That requires Siri to better understand what each app does. Today, Siri can do things like search for the weather or look up information over the Web. But iPhone users can’t ask Siri to book a car or hotel reservation, or send a message through a messaging app other than iMessage. Apple has struck specific deals to allow Siri users to buy movie tickets through Fandango and book restaurant reservations through OpenTable, but the goal is to make such functionality possible without custom, one-off business deals.
Apple Siri Partnerships
Bringing Siri into an API could mean that manufacturers could implement interactions which hook into Siri, but would Apple still control the experience entirely through an API? A partnership makes much more sense, whereby Apple are in control of the implementation. They can have Siri hook into other Apps or Services to bring information into Siri, rather than allow the transaction to be reversed, and have information pushed into Siri out of Apple’s control.
It seems Apple are trying to expand the functionality of Siri but who exactly they are trying to build partnerships with is at the moment unclear. However, one thing is for sure is that Apple want to ensure that the experience is consistent across everyone’s device, regardless of what App they have installed, device they have, or service they are using.
[Via The Information]