Apple Job Listings Indicate Siri Will Soon Support 13 More Languages

It seems that the Cupertino tech giant is planning to extend support for its voice-based virtual assistant to a range of new languages. The news comes via job listings on the 'Jobs at Apple' official website, where the company says it is seeking "Siri Language Engineers" that are expert in foreign languages and have strong software development skills.

With the languages listed in the Apple job post, it seems an upcoming version of Siri will support 13 new languages, namely Arabic, Australian English, Brazilian Portuguese, British English, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Russian.

All the listings posted between June 10 and June 19 on Apple's website (via MacRumors) suggests interested candidates to have strong software development skills, natural language processing, machine learning or related sub-fields.

While we don't know what other plans Apple has in mind for Siri, but we could certainly relate it to Microsoft's recent efforts with its own voice-based virtual assistant, Cortana. Microsoft, which initially announced Cortana for the US market only, is now all set to make it available to other regions. It is also evaluating the merits of bringing it to other platforms like Android and iOS, as well as other form factors like desktops, vehicles, and kiosks.

While commenting on the availability of Cortana in the UK before getting it to other platforms like Android and iOS, Marcus Ash, Windows Phone Group Program Manager had tweeted the roll-out as Microsoft's top priority for Cortana, "I should have added one. 0. Making #Cortana available in the UK and China will happen very soon. Weeks not months."

Ash also said that for now Microsoft didn't have plans to monetise the Cortana virtual assistant with ads, saying it was far too early in the product's life.