Apple’s smart assistant Siri will be available to third-party developers later this year. They can build in the voice assistant in their own smart home devices such as thermostats. In the smart home area, Apple is merging many features of Apple TV with HomeKit.
Apple says at WWDC developer conference that it is already working with several developers to use Siri. Developers can place the smart assistant in devices, although the company does not provide much information about this for the time being, for example what limitations they get with it.
Contrary to previous rumors , Apple is not coming with a new operating system for smarthomes or the Apple TV, but with various functions that combine parts thereof. For example, users can ask via Siri on the HomePod speaker to play a certain series or movie on the Apple TV. HomePod Minis can also now be used to play sound from the Apple TV.
The HomePod will also get voice recognition in the future. Apple TV, in turn, is getting support for the same sharing feature that comes in iOS 15 . This allows users to watch movies or series together with friends. Its image and sound is then synchronized with viewers. The feature is called SharePlay. Finally, it will also be possible to set user profiles for tvOS.
