Voice assistants have a reputation for being finicky about activation, such as responding to prompts spoken in ads. Apple may fix this issue. 9to5Mac spotted the issue in the beta version of tvOS 18.2. A piece of code called AdBlocker appears to use the Shazam API to match audio captured by the device’s microphones with audio fingerprints downloaded from Apple. When there is a match, the normal Siri launch command is disabled. In theory, this means that Apple can make sure that devices do not respond to the “Hello, Siri” request when it is uttered during presentations or TV commercials for the company.
The publication found this feature only in the current tvOS developer beta, which means that the HomePod smart speaker will be the first device to potentially ignore “Hello, Siri” commands. However, iOS 18.2 is also in developer beta and will bring more Apple Intelligence features to Apple smartphones, as well as possibly integrate ChatGPT subscriptions with Siri.
