MUMBAI - Siri and Apple Vision Pro (AVP) seem to be following opposite trajectories. When Siri was first announced, it surprised the world as the first voice assistant for the masses - and was supposed to have a great future. Over the years, however, it has become more like a parody that has failed to live up to the fanfare - foreshadowing the fate of other underwhelming voice assistants like Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant.

AVP attracted much ridicule at its preview launch in June 2023 because it was a virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed-reality set in an already crowded market - plus it was exorbitantly priced and had doubtful functionality as a ‘spatial computer.’ Despite these ‘handicaps,’ within weeks of its launch AVP  managed to enter the technological and cultural imagination - as only Apple products have been able to do in the last 50 years.

Their disparate trajectories aside, Siri and AVP are made for each other - though Apple does not seem to realize this. This article is an attempt to open their eyes to the potential of both Siri and AVP - and what AVP could do for Apple and the world.

Steve Jobs’ last day

Just one day before Steve Jobs - Apple’s founder and former executive - succumbed to cancer, the company launched Siri for the world. Although Jobs had acquired that tech a few years ago, the launch - which Jobs did see - was not nearly as world-changing as that of the iPhone. It was not meant to be. Apple was supposed to have achieved its goal in subsequent years - and it has done so with AVP - but Siri is sadly not in the picture. One cannot help but wonder if this might be different if Jobs were still alive today.

Jobs died before the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution truly began, but he had already seen the future and Siri’s acquisition and launch as the world’s first m