Apple plans to open its Siri voice assistant to apps made by others — while it develops a device that will compete with Amazon’s Echo speaker, according to a report.
Apple aims to make a software developer kit, or SDK, available for Siri in time for its annual developers conference next month, according to the Information.
Critics say Siri has been slow to improve since it launched in 2011. Siri’s frustrated founders left Apple and recently unveiled a rival voice assistant called Viv that works with apps such as Uber and Yelp.
SoundHound this spring launched a similar, app-friendly assistant called Hound. Last week, Google unveiled improvements to its rival product, Google Assistant, which can handle more complex queries and work with other apps.
No timetable was given for Apple’s Echo-like device. It was under development “long before” the Echo’s 2015 release, the report said