There's a time and a place for everything. In the privacy of my home, I have no problem saying “hello” to Google, Alexa, Siri, Meta, and occasionally Bixby. But in public? Where others might recognize me? I'd rather hide under a rock.
This has been one of my biggest pet peeves about AI gadgets over the past few months: the best way to interact with an AI assistant is to actually talk To them, it's no different from a movie. she. In reality, I rarely see friends or family using their mobile phone assistants when they're together in private. I never have So when Apple said during last week's WWDC keynote that iOS 18 would let you type to Siri instead, it felt like a bit of an “aha moment.”
Technically, you could already do this through the Accessibility settings on your iPhone (go to Accessibility > Siri > Type to Siri). This brings up a very basic window and keyboard for entering commands. But in iOS 18, Apple has taken this feature and made it so that you can double-tap the bottom of the screen to bring up the Siri keyboard. Instead of having to type (or say) your entire query, you can now just tap to see quick suggestions.
This makes sense for a ton of reasons. Digital assistants are getting better at understanding commands, but it's still hard to talk to them naturally. At home, I find myself adopting a certain pitch and tone when I use the wake word. I pre-think how to phrase my queries. Without even realizing it, when I ask Google to dim the lights in my living room to 25 percent, it sometimes fails. Having to do this in public makes me feel even more self-conscious.
The outdoors is incredibly noisy. While testing the multimodal AI capabilities of my Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, the AI repeatedly told me that the glasses couldn't hear me properly. Either the ambient noise was too loud, or I was subconsciously too embarrassed and quiet for the device to clearly hear what I was saying. This resulted in me having to pull out my smartphone, which is the exact opposite of what the AI hardware wants from me.
It's not just the latest AI gadget. Talking to a smartwatch would look cool if you were James Bond. But most people don't. Instead, most people I see look a little confused and annoyed. Is this vain? Yes. But a big reason people hesitate to try voice-controlled assistants while on the go is self-consciousness. A 2018 PwC survey on voice assistant usage found that 74% of consumers prefer to use voice assistants at home, saying using them in public “looks weird.” The same survey found that lack of trust was another big obstacle to using voice assistants in general. People didn't trust that voice assistants would understand their commands properly. If you know from experience that your AI assistant likely won't understand you, why would you try to use it in a place where you're likely to be judged? (Also, imagine saying “Hey Siri” to wake up your passenger's iPhone on your commute. A new nightmare begins.)
Technical issues aside, typing into an AI assistant also protects your privacy. You don't want people to know what you're doing on your phone, even if it's something innocuous like playing a song or setting a timer, and you especially don't want to dictate texts when others can hear. Typing these kinds of queries helps you keep your business to yourself, even if it means sacrificing some hands-free functionality in return.
I'm not denying that you have reasons to do so. need You can still talk to your assistant when you're in a public place. Voice commands are especially useful if you have limited hands or are driving a car. But having multiple ways to interact with an AI assistant can help make it more seamlessly integrated into how we use our gadgets, instead of forcing a new paradigm on everyone. Maybe one day it won't feel strange to talk out loud to a chatbot while walking down the street. For most of us, that day isn't today. And until that day comes, I'll happily type to Siri instead.
