According to a new report, Apple is planning on allowing iPhone users in the EU, the ability to change their default voice assistant. The report comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, which by itself lends a lot of credibility to this information.
As you may be aware, the EU has been steadily increasing regulations, especially those that directly impact Apple. It is reportedly in response to these changes in the EU that Apple is working on the new change.
The report further mentions that the company will implement this change across a range of platforms, which implies that it won’t be limited to just the iPhone, but will probably be available on Mac, and iPad as well.
The timeline for such a change is unclear, but it could be something that’s coming as an iOS 19 feature later down the line.
Toasty Take
I am not fully convinced by everything the EU regulators want Apple to comply with. However, this is one thing I am excited about. Siri has long been struggling to be as useful as Google Assistant, and even with the long-awaited, still-not-exactly-here, Apple Intelligence features, Siri hasn’t improved by leaps and bounds.
If I were to get the option to have Google Assistant as my default voice assistant on the iPhone, I would jump at the chance.
What’s more, it’s never bad to have options. You can always go back to Siri if you don’t want to use a third party voice assistant on your iPhone. I mean, similar options are already available for a bunch of other features on iPhone. Users in the EU can choose their default messaging apps, browsing app, and even navigation apps. Clearly, the change hasn’t messed up anything, and having a similar freedom with Siri and other voice assistants would only serve to make the iPhone more usable.
What do you think? Would you like to switch away from Siri if given the chance? Let us know in the comments.
source: Bloomberg (link)