Apple, Inc. wants a slice of the emerging smart home assistant market, and is looking to build an Amazon Echo rival and open Siri to third party developers, according to one report Tuesday.

The Information (paywall) claims that Apple is planning to open up Siri, its intelligent assistant featured on its iPhone and iPad range, to outside app developers through the release of a software development kit (SDK) that would allow any developer to integrate their app with Siri itself.

In more simple terms, what it will allow is third party services to be accessed via Siri, as is currently the case with Amazon.com, Inc.’s Echo, which allows users to do things such as book an Uber ride or order a pizza.

In an interesting turn, the report goes on to claim that Apple has actually been working on a “Siri speaker” long before the Amazon Echo was launched, with a plan to provide features including the ability to turn on and off any appliance supported by Apple’s HomeKit platform, and perform additional tasks in a similar fashion to automated bots.

While the report claims that Apple’s interest in building an Amazon Echo rival is more a long term project at this stage, the Siri SDK is likely to be announced at Apple’s annual WWDC conference in June.

Battle on

Since launching two years ago, the Amazon Echo has been a surprise hit, and interest in the device has more recently seen Google, Inc. enter the space with the announcement of Google Home.

Despite bringing to market the first popular digital assistant in the form of Siri, Apple remains behind the proverbial 8-ball in the space, and Siri is starting to look old fashioned compared to what else is now available in the market.

Providing an SDK and opening up Siri to third-party developers and services is at the very least a move in the right direction for Apple, be it that they still have a long way to go in playing catch up.

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