Apple began carrying out Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12. Google is already providing shortcuts with Mobile Assistant. If you get a cup of coffee in the morning, Siri will note it and start recommending it. And in the iOS 14 beta that I’m currently exploring, I find even more of Siri’s feedback. Likewise, Google Assistant is deploying the ability to control apps more via commands like “New Tweet,” which will open Twitter with the Tweet Composition window open, ready, and waiting.
On a technical level, what’s going on here is that developers are putting hooks into apps with the help of AI assistants like Siri and Google Assistant that can turn on. Apple is taking that to the next level with the Shortcuts app, which lets you tie multiple actions in multiple apps together, just like Amazon and Google did with Alexa Routines and Google Assistant Routines. With Shortcuts or Routines, you can turn off the lights, turn on the alarm, lock your doors, and sleep. You’re going from potentially having to access three different apps for three different capabilities to one voice command.
If you control Philips Hue light via Siri, Philips still counts you as a customer. The Philips Hue system is enabled for smart AI assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa. Most of this can be done via Google Assistant or Siri, but some of it requires the Philips Hue app. From this point of view, Apple, Google, and Amazon are expected to build more and more functionality on Siri, Assistant, and Alexa, asking developers to build more hooks on their apps, or even to do so without hooks, and to use virtual taps and data entry apps as needed. They are rich when many third-party products and services are available to them, and when developers and publishers feel safe investing and building on them. Add too much value to the platform itself, and third parties will think it’s too dangerous to support HomeKit, Google Home, or Alexa.
It would be much easier for Google users if the Assistant were to order Starbucks coffee every morning. In the end, smart AI assistants will have to do more and more.
