Apple Hiring Interface Engineers to Expand the Role of Siri

Apple Hiring Interface Engineers to Expand the Role of Siri

Apple has posted a job listing for user interface engineers who want to make “the next big thing even bigger.” with an eye expanding Siri’s capabilities to new apps on iOS, and apparently, their Mac platform.

siri_iOS6

AppleInsider:

Apple has posted a full time position that will “join the team that implements the UI for Siri,” specifically the presentation of results in Siri’s “conversation view” (as shown below for various existing apps that integrate with Siri).

The task involves a study of each new application or service that will interact with Siri, including a process to “distill it down to fundamentals, and implement that application’s UI in a theme fitting with Siri.”

Apple is telling applicants to “consider it a an entire miniature OS within the OS, and you get a good idea of the scope.”

Oddly enough, the job listing makes no direct mention of iOS, the most obvious target for Siri integration.

While Apple brought Siri’s dictation features to OS X last year, they haven’t brought the full Siri functionality to their computer OS. It’s widely anticipated that they will be bringing Siri to OS X in the next version of the operating system.

The job listing hints that the Siri team is also working to deliver features for the Mac, calling for knowledge of Apple’s APIs on both OS X and iOS, and specifically for familiarity with the core of OS X.

A final “requirement” listed is a “passion for the Macintosh platform and writing simple, elegant software that is easy and fun to use.”