{"id":50097,"date":"2025-11-18T19:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50097"},"modified":"2025-11-18T19:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:55:12","slug":"ios-26-2-third-party-voice-assistants-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/18\/ios-26-2-third-party-voice-assistants-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"iOS 26.2: Third-Party Voice Assistants in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/17\/ios-26-2-iphone-users-japan-siri\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/17\/ios-26-2-iphone-users-japan-siri\/\">\n<p>Following signs of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/17\/ios-26-2-iphone-users-eu-siri-replacement\/\">new Side Button functionality<\/a> in the iOS 26.2 beta 3 update, <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/documentation\/appintents\/launching-your-voice-based-conversational-app-from-the-side-button-of-iphone\">Apple developer documentation<\/a> has confirmed that assigning a third-party voice assistant to the Side Button will be a feature available to iPhone users in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Apple makes it clear that the option to activate a third-party personal assistant using App Intents will only be available on the  iPhone  in Japan, not in other countries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently not even in the EU.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how well this will work. It sounds like audio doesn&rsquo;t begin recording until after the app launches, so you may not be able to just press the button and immediately begin speaking like with Siri. And then, I guess, afterwards you&rsquo;re left in the voice assistant app, whereas Siri gets to work on top of other apps in its own mode. There also doesn&rsquo;t seem to be a way for third-parties to set a wake word.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/07\/white-label-gemini-on-private-cloud-compute\/\">White Label Gemini on Private Cloud Compute<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/07\/ios-26-2-app-marketplaces-and-browser-choice-in-japan\/\">iOS 26.2: App Marketplaces and Browser Choice in Japan<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/08\/japanese-mobile-software-competition-act\/\">Japanese Mobile Software Competition Act<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/10\/how-apple-fumbled-siris-ai-makeover\/\">How Apple Fumbled Siri&rsquo;s AI Makeover<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/10\/eu-ios-envy\/\">EU iOS Envy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/30\/the-voice-assistant-battle-2023\/\">The Voice Assistant Battle 2023<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juli Clover: Following signs of new Side Button functionality in the iOS 26.2 beta 3 update, Apple developer documentation has confirmed that assigning a third-party voice assistant to the Side Button will be a feature available to iPhone users in Japan. [&#8230;] Apple makes it clear that the option to activate a third-party personal assistant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-11-19T00:55:16Z","apple_news_api_id":"dff50925-4766-48b2-914e-c7f480d769f0","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-11-19T00:55:16Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A3_UJJUdmSLKRTsf0gNdp8A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2085,2684,1351,31,2741,1714,247],"class_list":["post-50097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-antitrust","tag-app-intents","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-japan","tag-siri"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50098,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50097\/revisions\/50098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}