Apple's virtual Siri-ball is a glowing reminder to Google and Microsoft that user interfaces really matter in software
Overview & Key Takeaways
I'll take environmental lighting over a cell-blocking button any day of the week.
Now that AI is being shoehorned into every app or operating system these days, whether you want it or not, attention is being increasingly turned to the user interface. At one end of the spectrum, you have Google and Microsoft's unaccommodating efforts, and at the other, you have Apple's new orb-of-wonder, actively lighting its 'surroundings'.
Later this year, an updated, fully AI-powered version of Siri will make its way to all of Apple's operating systems, though developers can already access it. For the likes of iOS and MacOS, Siri AI's interface isn't especially noteworthy, but on visionOS, the software that powers the Apple Vision Pro, it really stands out.
As briefly demonstrated in a post on X by Brad Lynch, project manager at EOZ VR, the Siri AI interface takes the form of a glowing ball that you can move around in the virtual world. You'd expect that for an augmented reality setup, but what makes Apple's effort special is the little matter of the ball's lighting.
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The AR rendering of the ball includes an environmental effect, whereby surfaces and objects are 'lit' by the Siri AI interface. Hardly a revolutionary thing, but visual clues like this significantly help with how well virtual objects are experienced and interacted with in an augmented world. If you look at the visionOS windows in the clip, you'll see that they appear flat and unnatural because they cast no shadows or light.
For me, though, it's more about the fact that Apple has spent some time thinking about the interface, whereas Google and Microsoft have done almost the complete opposite for Gemini and Copilot, respectively.
Fire up the latest version of Excel, and you'll be treated to a Copilot button that hovers over the spreadsheet. You can't move the icon yourself; all you can do is 'dock' it to the edge of the window. But even then, it still overlaps cells, and the only way you can solve this problem is by disabling Copilot entirely (File > Options > Copilot, if you're interested).
At least you do have that option, though, unlike with Google's products, where Gemini icons festoon every application and first-run instructions routinely pop up, no matter how frequently you acknowledge or dismiss the reminders.
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No PC user needs to be told just how crucial the user interface is for an application. Apple's Siri-ball for visionOS isn't a miracle of design or coding: it just puts the user's experience first, over everything else, something that Google and Microsoft really don't seem to care about these days. You wouldn't want a ray-traced globe illuminating your spreadsheets, but a little more interactivity would be very welcome.
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