Apple TV Update Teaches Siri to Identify Multiple Voices and Run a Karaoke Night
Siri can identify up to six different voices through Apple TV with the new tvOS 16.2 software update sent over the air. The Apple TV upgrade extends the same multi-user function added to the Apple HomePod smart speaker three years ago to its smart TV, along with the new Apple Music Sing feature, which uses AI speech recognition to lower the volume of singers on Apple Music tracks and display song lyrics for karaoke purposes.
Personal TV
Individuals in a household can train Siri on their TV to learn what they sound like and generate a voice profile for Siri to use when it hears that person speak. Each user is then able to pull up their own viewing history without having to sign into a different account. Siri also offers personalized recommendations when asked, “What should I watch?” The new features go with the tvOS 16 Apple released a couple of months ago, which also revamped Siri’s appearance on TVs to a card-style format. The multi-user feature brings Apple TV closer to alignment with some of its rivals, as Amazon debuted the same ability for Fire TVs last year while TiVo worked with vocal biometrics developer Pindrop to do the same for its set-top boxes almost two years ago.
Karaoke Siri
The new Apple Music Sing feature utilizes speech recognition for a different purpose than Siri. The smart TV links to a user’s Apple Music account to play a song but offers users the option to lower or mute the singer so that users can sing along. The smart TV will also display the lyrics in real time, animating them to the rhythm of the song so the user can perform them accurately. The lyrics to background vocals can be displayed and will move independently and songs with two or more singers will have their lyrics on different parts of the screen to distinguish them. Apple released more than 50 playlists specifically optimized for Sing to accompany the new feature, each with their own theme.
“Apple Music’s lyrics experience is consistently one of the most popular features on our service,” Apple Music and Beats vice president Oliver Schusser explained. “We already know our users all over the world love to follow along to their favorite songs, so we wanted to evolve this offering even further to enable even more engagement around music through singing. It’s really a lot of fun, our customers are going to love it.”
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