From Jared Newman at FastCompany, after interviewing yours truly last week:
Matthew Cassinelli, a writer and consultant on iOS automation who worked on the app that eventually became Shortcuts, believes Apple will succeed because of all the years it spent laying the ground work.
After all, App Intents aren’t just about Siri. They’re also an essential building block for other iOS features, such as widgets, Spotlight search, Live Activities, and iOS 18’s expanded Control Center and lock screen toggles. Developers that support these features will also be expanding Siri by extension.
“They’ve done a very good job of seeding this to developers in a way that’s key to their entire ecosystem and how it runs,” Cassinelli says.
Apple’s also going to benefit from the ongoing AI hype wave. Instead of just promoting a better version of Siri, Apple can wrap it in the broader “Apple Intelligence” branding, with a marketing push aimed at both users and app makers. Cassinelli says he’s already seeing a change in attitude toward App Intents from the latter group.
“They announced Apple Intelligence stuff, and since then, every app developer’s like, ‘Alright, I’m doing this now,’” he says.
And:
As Matthew Cassinelli points out, those companies must also still figure out how developers can monetize virtual assistant support. That’s not a problem for Apple, whose developers are simply building out Siri support atop their existing apps.
“Apple’s ability just to let you make money on the App Store alone, it’s very powerful compared to something like Google Assistant or Alexa, where they’d have to start a whole business just for that sort of thing,” he says.
Check out the rest of the piece for quotes from developers as well.
