14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has already launched Cortana on the PC, and the company is working at full speed on improving it. But it turns out that Apple also thinks that having a personal assistant on the desktop is a good idea, so it’s preparing to launch Siri on Mac OS X too.
Hints at a possible launch of Siri on the desktop have been dropped every once in a while, but a recent discovery made by Brian Roemmele seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle that confirms Apple is indeed heading in this direction.
When asking Siri for iOS to open something in a window, the digital assistant doesn’t answer with a search query on the web, but with a pre-defined reply reading that “it doesn’t look like you have that app.” Furthermore, some answers include references to the Mac OS X Finder app, and all of these are signs that Siri might indeed be ready for a desktop debut.
Public announcement at WWDC?
Just as expected, Apple has remained completely tight-lipped on all these rumors, but since the company’s WWDC conference is just around the corner, the launch of Siri on Mac OS X is very likely to be announced in a few hours.
Certainly, the dispute between Apple and Microsoft is getting more interesting now that both companies would have a digital assistant on their desktop platforms, although it has already been proved that, at least on mobile, Siri is the clear winner.
On the other hand, Windows still dominates the PC market, so Cortana might have a fair advantage now, but time will tell which digital assistant users actually prefer.
And yet, despite the fact that both Apple and Microsoft are still investing millions of dollars in bringing such technologies on computers, there’s one big question that many people are still asking: do we really need a digital assistant on the PC?