If rumors are to be believed—and leading up to the Sept. 12 iPhone launch event in Cupertino, rumors are all we have—Apple’s next smartphone will look totally different. And with those design changes come consequences for iPhone owners who have grown used to accessing their favorite features in certain ways. For instance, new code recently unearthed by a developer points to how the next, allegedly home button-free iPhone can be used to summon Siri, Apple’s voice assistant technology.
Instead of mashing your thumb down on the home button, the all-new iPhone will let users press the Sleep/Wake button to summon Siri, says MacRumors. The long-standing Apple blog credits the discovery of this change to Brazillian iOS developer Guilherme Rambo, who first revealed it on Twitter.
I did find a gesture to invoke Siri by holding the lock button.
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) September 2, 2017
Though pressing the home button might have be the most popular way to pull up Siri, it’s not the only way for iPhone users to access Apple’s voice assistant. Another way is to call out “Hey Siri,” a method as the company has been promoting recently through its ad with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
It’s likely we’ll learn more about Apple’s (AAPL) plans for voice computing come Sept. 12’s event in Cupertino, when the company will probably spill more of the secrets inside its HomePod smart speaker, which also will rely on Siri’s technology.
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More Siri news will be welcomed by fans of Apple’s artificial intelligence initiative, which needs a pick-me-up in light of increased competition, specifically from Amazon’s Alexa technology. But with rumors that the next iPhone’s killer feature is AR (or “augmented reality”), the company may be looking more towards where the ball is headed next than where it is now. And that should surprise no one who has watched the moves this company has historically made.
