It seems that, once the world of keyboards, mice and screens was conquered, now all the big tech companies (and Amazon) are focused on that we can ask for things with our voice. Which is great, but no one seems to have found the right formula yet.
A few days ago we saw how Spotify could be playing with the idea of launch your own speaker, and be, to that speaker, what Apple Music is to the HomePod. From taking out your own speaker, it is obvious to think that will have some way of interacting, and it seems that everything indicates that it will be with our voice.
Hunter Owens posted on Twitter images of the new - and confirmed but not publicized - voice assistant integrated into the Spotify app for iOS. It consists of a search option, rather than a wizard as such. When accessing the Spotify search section, we can click on the new microphone icon and ask Spotify for albums, artists, lists or songs.
i spy @Spotify laying the foundation for a smart speaker… pic.twitter.com/n1slxIFUNA
- Hunter Owens (@owens) March 14, 2018
The videos showing how it works seem to give fast and accurate results. Of course, for the moment in perfect English and only for a small group of users. Hopefully, it will reach more users and, eventually, other countries and languages.
But the truth is, what do we want it to come for? In other words, the idea of asking Spotify for music directly is good, but very limited. So much so that, if we want to have something similar to today, we can use Apple's keyboard dictation (or any keyboard that allows dictation like Gboard) to request music from Spotify.
Since Spotify cannot use Siri, this Spotify assistant need us to unlock the iPhone (have it in hand) and that we press on the microphone icon (that we manipulate the iPhone), so it loses all the comfort that Siri brings -to those who use it- in Apple Music. And the result is still like dictating what we want.
Still, it's great news. Any improvement and convenience is always appreciated. Without a doubt, Apple seems that it is not willing to let Siri search for content within Spotify, but it will not be because Spotify does not try. Also, on other speakers, such as the Sonos or the rumored Spotify speaker, could include this search and some command that allows you to search in the style of "Hey, Siri."
