In 2011, Siri was integrated into iOS. It has been three years since her appearance, and she has not yet made it to the Mac OS. That may soon change. The United States Patent and Trademark Office published a lengthy, detailed patent application that Apple filed in February. The patent application describes a desktop virtual assistant surpasses the Mac’s current voice dictation feature.
Desktop Siri would function much like her mobile OS counterpart, but her functional abilities could be more advanced. Here’s what we might expect of a desktop Siri:
- Activation by a particular motion pattern on the mousepad
- Dictation or command mode to process speech or text input
- Operations performed in response to object dragged and dropped onto the assistant icon
- Cooperation in completing a task the user has already started on a user device
Other features include a “Hey Siri” voice prompt that activates the virtual assistant (available in iOS 8), the ability to send emails and convert speech into text, and taking on requested tasks while the user is working on a different task. This “Third Hand” feature could change the way users work on their Macs. For example, say a user is working on a program like WordPress, and they want to add a screenshot into the post. As he continues typing, the user can tell Siri to pull up the folder in which the photo is stored. Siri performs the operation, and the user can then easily drag and drop the photo into the program’s media library.
Also interesting to note is that the patent filing mentions an ability to recognize context. Siri will take commands in the context of deduced user intent by using speech recognition to understand and remember contextual clues. Mac’s OS is better equipped to support this feature than the current mobile OS.
Whether Apple plans to integrate Siri into OS X in the near future is uncertain. There is no sign of her anywhere in OS X Yosemite, and it’s doubtful that Apple would try to keep Siri a surprise. It would be vital for the company to consider user feedback in integrating the virtual assistant application. If Siri isn’t in the Yosemite beta, she isn’t anywhere…yet.
Sources: Mac Rumors, Apple Insider
