There’s been a lot of speculation in recent weeks about what Apple will announce during this year’s WWDC in San Francisco. Apple’s annual developer meet and greet will undoubtedly feature an early iOS 8 reveal, giving us all a chance to see what the future of iOS holds.
Each and every year there is also a lot of attention lavished on the future of the Apple TV and whether or not the fruit company will progress the product further by lavishing us with an SDK or dedicated App Store. We have to wait until June for anything official, but a Siri based finding within the iOS 7.1 codebase seems to suggest that Apple’s digital assistant could be making its way onto the Apple TV in the future.
A tinkerer and iOS user has investigated the internals of Apple’s latest iOS release and found that it contains references, suggesting that the Apple TV is capable of running the Siri digital assistant. A number of media outlets have since picked up on the finding, with 9to5Mac confirming that the references appear to be relatively recent additions after first appearing with the release of iOS 7.1. The inclusion within the two latest pubic versions of iOS would seem to suggest that offering support for Siri within the “hobby” Apple TV project is something that is actively being worked on as we speak.
References to the Apple TV support for Siri were found in an internal property-list resource that dictates preferences throughout the software. It’s also interesting to note that the property-list in question is directly linked to the Assistant app which is the internal codename Apple uses for Siri.
Apple TV support for Siri would seem to suggest that a hardware refresh is on the immediate agenda. The current-generation hardware doesn’t come equipped with an internal microphone, which would essentially make interacting with Siri an impossible task.
It’s often easy to forget that Apple’s iOS firmware extends beyond the scope of the iPhone and iPad. The Apple TV has been gaining popularity at a remarkable rate over the last few years leading to intense speculation that Apple is beginning to treat the hardware as a serious revenue generating product.
With rumors of an SDK and dedicated App Store intensifying it looks like the Apple TV is ready to shine in its own right.
(Source: UNiCORN [Twitter])
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