Apple steps up in the Conversational UI space
What’s going on?
Last week Apple held their annual conference, the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Among their various announcements were a number of product reveals which highlight Apple’s focus on developing conversational interfaces.
We discussed the rise of conversational interfaces at our Future Nights evening. They are the next generation of the User Interface, which for the last thirty years at least has been mostly graphical. Today when we interact with a product or a service we generally use an App or a website, which provides us with a graphical UI. This experience is so ubiquitous that we almost take for granted that if we want to use a computer, it needs to have a screen and a GUI. Before we had screens, however, we talked to each other — spoken language was the original interface and has always been our most natural way of communicating with one another. Natural language processing software is becoming so sophisticated that we’re now starting to develop computers and applications which we can talk to. The biggest players in the technology industry — companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple — are all developing ‘chat bots’ which are beginning to redefine the way we communicate with our computers.
At WWDC Apple launched SiriKit, an API allowing developers to connect their applications to Siri. In Apple’s own words, ‘SiriKit enables your iOS 10 apps to work with Siri, so users can get things done with your content and services using just their voice.’ Apple understands that consumers don’t enjoy having to use a separate App for every product or service they want to interact with. If talking is how we prefer to interact with our friends and family, why can’t we talk to the products and services we use every day too? SiriKit now makes this possible.
The new iMessage is another incarnation of this same concept. The average smartphone user will regularly use only a handful of Apps. Some of the most popular Apps which people do use are instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger and iMessage and this makes sense — this is where we talk to our friends. Apple has announced an integrated App Store inside iMessage, which will allow users to interact with third-party services directly from within an iMessage chat interface.
The final, and perhaps most significant announcement which I want to highlight is the release of the latest version of Apple’s desktop operating system, now called macOS (formerly OSX). As you can see from the linked landing page, the most important thing about this iteration of the operating system is that Siri will now exist on your Mac. This heralds an important paradigm-shift in the way we use and view our various devices.
Currently most of us regularly use two or three distinct devices. We all use a computer at work, we all have a mobile phone and many of us will probably own another computer or laptop which we use at home. Cloud-based syncing of user accounts and data allow us to transition between these devices relatively smoothly, but I think it’s true that we generally view them as distinct devices. We’re entering the age of the Internet of Things, a term which describes the idea that more and more everyday items are becoming connected to the internet. Our televisions, cars, and myriad home appliances will soon contain individual computers and as this happens it’s important that they don’t all behave like distinct, separate devices. It’s also true that not all of these devices will lend themselves to a graphical interface like a screen, so we need another way to interact with these computers which will be consistent and unified.
The answer to this problem will be AI chat bots like Siri, the Google Assistant, Viv, Cortana, Alexa and the like. Rather than interacting with individual devices we will find ourselves interacting with our own personal version of Siri which knows all about our habits and preferences. Mobile phones, desktop computers and smart cars will no longer act like individual, distinct devices — they’ll all be different ways of communicating with our centralised, personalised AI assistant. By freeing Siri from the iPhone and making her a consistent experience across all their products, Apple is taking the first step in this direction.
What does this mean for me?
The most important thing to take away from this at the moment is similar to what I discussed at our Future Nights evening. The age of the App is coming to an end, so if you’re developing or trying to improve a product or service you really need to think about whether a traditional App and a traditional graphical interface is the best solution. Companies like Facebook and Apple are providing you with the tools to connect your application to a chat interface and there is an opportunity right now to be an innovator and a first-mover in this space.
We can also take some important notes from the rise of the conversational interface. Any business which wants to grow knows the importance of the customer experience, and the way the customer interacts with your business is central to this. Conversational UIs allow us to communicate with our customers in a human tone of voice. They allow products and services to inhabit the same space that was traditionally reserved for human-to-human interaction. This may feel unsettling at first, but being relatable and always being there for your customers without them having to find you will give your business an edge.
Finally, witnessing the rise and fall of the mobile app is an important study in critical thinking. For the last thirty years it has been taken for granted that computers need screens and that best best way to interact with a computer is through a graphical interface. Despite this conventional wisdom, the fact is that traditional apps provide an imperfect user experience, and usage data proves this. This nascent revolution of the user interface is an important reminder to constantly challenge the way we do things and to never take anything for granted.
The above article has been republished from Taste Creative’s Forethought newsletter.
