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Teardown of the iPhone X shows different mix of Amplifier chips

http://www.techinsights.com/about-techinsights/overview/blog/apple-iphone-x-teardown

The way people interact with computers is moving from text input to spoken questions and commands. That’s the assessment of Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker, who presented her annual Internet Trends report Wednesday at Vox Media-owned Re/code’s Code Conference.

The computer interface is shifting from the keyboard to the microphone as more people use speech-based digital assistants such as Apple’s (AAPL) Siri. Other companies in the field include Amazon.com‘s (AMZN) Alexa, Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Cortana, Alphabet‘s (GOOGL) Google Now and Nuance Communications‘ (NUAN) Nina.

The use of voice-based search and virtual assistants has soared as speech recognition has improved significantly in recent years, Meeker said. She says the percentage of smartphone owners in the U.S. who use voice assistants has risen from 30% in 2013 to 65% last year.

Google voice search queries are now more than seven times the level seen in 2010, Meeker said.

China search leader Baidu (BIDU) is seeing even faster adoption of voice search and speech-recognition apps because typing Chinese on a small cellphone keypad is more difficult than typing in English, Meeker said. Baidu Chief Scientist Andrew Ng expects at least half of searches will be through images or speech by 2020.

A survey by MindMeld, a provider of intelligent conversational voice interfaces, found that people find voice apps most useful in situations when their hands or vision are occupied. Respondents also say it’s faster to speak a question or command than to type it.

The transition from keyboards to microphones for computer input, however, is still in its early innings, Meeker said.

The next step for voice-based digital assistants is for companies to open up their application program interfaces to third parties, she said. Amazon has already done that with Alexa and its Echo smart speakers. Google is taking similar action.

Apple is rumored to be developing a rival product to the Amazon Echo and plans to announce a software development kit to open up the device to third-party developers at its Worldwide Developers Conference June 13-17 in San Francisco.

In a research report Wednesday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said he expects Siri to be center stage at the company’s annual conference. He predicts Apple will showcase a Siri SDK for third-party developers to expand use cases for Siri and lay the groundwork for a Wi-Fi-enabled personal assistant device like Amazon Echo. 

The voice-first user interface has gone mainstream

A quantitative study of Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s Siri and Google’s OK Google shows where — and how — they're being used by consumers.
BY BEN BAJARIN JUN 7, 2016, 12:00P

Search Google for full article.

Going forward
I walked away from this study with confidence that the voice-user interface has gone mainstream. What’s more, mainstream consumers seem to recognize its value and convenience. Consider these statements from consumers:

It does not always work, but when it does it is very useful: 55 percent strongly agree
I would use my devices voice capabilities more if I could speak to it more naturally: 43 percent strongly agree
If it worked more often, I would use my device's voice assistants more: 48 percent strongly agree
I want my device’s voice interface to integrate better with more devices and apps that I use regularly: 66 percent strongly agree
I am not comfortable speaking to my technology: 41 percent strongly disagree
It is encouraging, from a sentiment perspective, that voice looks to be a natural extension of our keyboard/mouse/touch-based input and output methods. Consumers seem to recognize its value, and want it to work in more ways. I’ve long said that the true test of a great feature very early in its life cycle is when it combines both delight and frustration. Once you use it, you’re hooked, but you want it to be great all the time, because you can see the potential. This is why we snuck this question into the sentiment segment to see if consumers agreed: 47 percent strongly agree and 38 percent somewhat agree that when their voice assistant works, it's great, and when it doesn’t, they get irritated.

The battle for the voice-based assistant is on. This is another area where the one with the biggest ecosystem built around their voice UI/voice OS has the best shot of being "hired" by the masses.