iOS 11.2 Beta Reveals ‘SiriKit’ For Apple’s HomePod

With companies like Amazon and Google launching smart speakers with their own digital assistants baked into them, it hardly came as a surprise to see Apple launch a similar product of their own. Earlier this year during WWDC, Apple announced that they would be launching a smart speaker with Siri called HomePod.

Recently Apple has released the iOS 11.2 beta and based on what’s been discovered inside of the beta, it has been revealed that Apple has also included SiriKit for the HomePod, which is basically an SDK that allows developers to take advantage of Siri on the HomePod to create apps or let it perform certain tasks.

However as 9to5Mac points out, it seems that Siri support for third-party apps on the HomePod could be limited since Apple has yet to address the topic. The description also reads, “With the intelligence of Siri, users control HomePod through natural voice interaction. And with SiriKit, users can access iOS apps for Messaging, Lists, and Notes. Make sure your SiriKit integration is up to date and test your app’s voice-only experience today.”

This seems to be a stark contrast to what Amazon is doing, in which they’re trying to court developers with prize money to create skills for Alexa. In any case we suppose we’ll find out the true extent of HomePod and Siri’s capabilities for when the smart speakers launch at the end of the year, although last we heard there could be some supply constraints.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Audio, Gadgets
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), HomePod, iOS, ios 11, Siri, Speakers