When you speak with Siri, the digital assistant knows how to distinguish your voice from someone else’s. Yet it hasn’t been able to respond uniquely for individual users depending on their profiles. That might change soon, though.
Apple was granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that involves voice recognition. The patent, called “User profiling for voice input processing,” leads us to believe that Siri will remember the preferences of who’s speaking. As it currently stands, the digital assistant only knows information about the account owner.
The patent doesn’t go into much detail about how Apple plans on using the technology, but its description gives a pretty good idea of what to expect.
Based on the description, Siri would identify who’s speaking in a few different ways. It could recognize the “voice print” or commonly-used phrases and actions. Siri will maintain a history of users to better understand them and act smarter as well as faster.
If you ask Siri on the HomePod to read a message, the patent would enable its ability to know who’s iPhone it should take a look at. The HomePod doesn’t have this feature currently and would simply read messages from the account owner’s iPhone only.
Apple could offer the technology across all products — HomePod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Google, meanwhile, already offers a similar feature through its own digital assistant.
With the patent just getting put into Apple’s hands, don’t expect to see Siri gain the benefits immediately. Apple, if it plans on using the patent at all, will probably take a few years to roll it out. So be patient, and eventually Siri might know more about you and your friends for the better.
