Siri - page 2

When you start to worry the air in your home could make you sick, an air purifier can help. And they’re getting smarter (but hopefully not “rise of the machines” smart a la Terminator).

The nara Pro, which the company bills as “the versatile air purifier robot,” runs a two-stage system via artificial intelligence that works with Siri and HomeKit, as well as other smart-home systems.

And you can get a good deal on it on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform.

Siri simply can’t compete with ChatGPT and other chatbots because it was built with the wrong system, according to someone who was once charged with improving Apple’s voice assistant.

But there’s hope for future improvement, as Apple is reportedly working on a replacement that is being built to be more like ChatGPT.

Imagine getting a text from a friend and your iPhone reads it to you in your friend’s voice. Rather than a recording, their speech would be simulated from a voice model.

That’s the goal of a patent Apple submitted recently.

Users have complained about the limitations of the Siri “intelligent” assistant for years, but now that OpenAI’s ChatGPT is showing the world that artificial intelligence can do amazing things, it’s never been more obvious that Apple’s version is as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Not only does this make Apple look bad, it makes HomePod less useful. Really, it makes all the company’s products less useful than they could be.

Apple needs to step up its AI game or it risks being left out of an important new wave of computing.

Apple’s recently announced HomePod 2 packs some impressive smart home capabilities. But that’s not the only product the company is working on.

Apple is reportedly working on several smart home devices, including a smart display. The low-end iPad-like device can control thermostats, lights and do FaceTime calls.

Apple is working on changing the “Hey Siri” hotword to just plain “Siri,” and the change could roll out as early as next year.

Introduced in 2015 with the iPhone 6s, the “Hey Siri” hotword remains unchanged to this day. You also can use the phrase to invoke Apple’s voice assistant on the Mac, iPad, HomePod and Apple Watch.

Yale, long known for its old-school locks, updated its Assure smart lock series Thursday. In addition to being 30% smaller than the original Assure smart locks, the new Assure Lock 2 models work with HomeKit and Siri voice control.

Say you’re in the kitchen and you hear an alarm going off on the iPad in your bedroom. Rather than walking across the house to to deactivate it, you can use Siri on your iPhone or HomePod to shut off the alarm. This method also works with timers (and a variety of devices, too).

Here’s how to do this trick on devices running iOS 16, which is out in beta now and coming soon to an iPhone near you.

If your iPhone or iPad locks up, iOS 16/iPadOS 16 will let get out of the jam by rebooting the device with a simple Siri command. It’s the easiest method I’ve found to get the handset or tablet going again when there’s a problem with the touchscreen, or the device is just misbehaving.

Here’s all you have to do.

Cupertino’s latest Apple Store location is coming to tony Brompton Road, London, on July 28. To go along with that opening Apple just put out a flowery new wallpaper with some hidden imagery to help pique your interest.

Among the exotic flora in the image above, can you spot an Apple Pencil, an iPhone and Siri remote? That’s not everything lurking there, but it’s a start.

Apple plans to produce an updated version of the HomePod as soon as the fourth quarter of 2022 or the first quarter of 2023, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Friday.

As reliable as Kuo can be, little other information exists beyond speculation. But that’s part of the fun.

A lot of folks are jonesing for an Apple smart speaker that goes beyond the HomePod mini. The original HomePod, while much more expensive, earned a great reputation for sound quality before Apple killed it in 2021. So naturally, Apple fans are interested in a successor, possibly with new features.

Smart home accessory specialist Ecobee unveiled two new smart thermostats Tuesday. Smart Thermostat Premium and Smart Thermostat Enhanced offer larger displays than before, a redesigned interface, HomeKit integration and more.

Smart speaker maker Sonos will soon deploy its own voice assistant, similar to Apple’s Siri. It will let you play and control music on the company’s products, according to a new report.

The new voice assistant, “Sonos Voice,” will work with Apple Music and a handful of other services.

Music streaming service Tidal rolled out its long-awaited Siri integration Wednesday. Subscribers can ask Apple’s voice assistant to play songs, playlists, albums and more on the platform.

That’s great if you play music on an iPhone, iPad or Mac. But the Siri integration with Tidal doesn’t extend to HomePod or HomePod mini, unfortunately.

The iPhone is renowned for its many accessibility features. Accessibility settings can make text on the screen bigger, buttons easier to identify, animations less jarring and sound easier to hear.

An accessibility feature that is useful for everyone is Spoken Content. You can have your phone read out loud anything you have on-screen. This feature was designed for people who have trouble reading small text, but you will find it handy even if you don’t — in lots of situations.

You can have recipes read to you while your hands are busy cooking, quickly hear how to pronounce a word you don’t know — that’s what I use it for most of all — and more. You can even hear what you’re typing as you write.

Here’s how to turn on Spoken Content.

Not satisfied with the thermostats on the market that you can use with HomeKit? Aqara is rolling out its HomeKit-compatible Smart Thermostat S3 with Siri voice support.

While the device is initially available only in China, experts speculate it could be coming to the U.S. and Europe, as well.

Studio Display’s surprisingly powerful internals allow it to enable “Hey Siri” on a number of older Mac models that don’t usually support the feature — including the 2019 Mac Pro and several Mac mini variants.

Users also discovered that Studio Display has a surprisingly large (64GB) amount of internal storage. We already knew that it runs the same version of iOS 15.4 as iPhone, but still, all that space seems pretty overkill.

One of the new features in iOS 15.4, released earlier this week, is a new, gender-neutral voice for Siri.

Apple developed the gender-neutral voice in response to criticism for using female voices as the default for the virtual assistant. If you want Siri to use a voice that is not explicitly female or male — maybe if you don’t identify that way yourself, or if you just want a nongendered voice assistant — now you have the option.

Here’s how to switch to the new voice on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Siri is about to get better at helping you clean the house. iRobot has begun to roll out an iRobot Genius 4.0 Home Intelligence software update to Roomba robot vacuum and Braava jet robot mop customers. The update brings Siri voice support to all users, at long last.

So cleaning the floors isn’t just for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant anymore.

We’re still yet to see an official invite for Apple’s big spring event, which all but rules out the rumored March 8 date. So, when is it likely to happen? Don’t bother asking Siri. As usual, the digital assistant proves less than helpful.

“You can’t hurry news” is the response you get when asking what will be announced at the next Apple event. “No, you’ll just have to wait.”

Apple on Tuesday confirmed that its second iOS 15.4 beta fixes a bug that caused some Siri interactions to be recorded even after a user opted out.

Only a “small portion” of iPhone units were affected by the bug, which was first introduced in iOS 15, Cupertino said. After installing iOS 15.4, users will again be asked whether they want to help improve Siri by having their interactions saved.

Nothing, the audio brand from OnePlus founder Carl Pei, just updated its Ear 1 true wireless earbuds to include Siri voice support. That makes the inexpensive earbuds a little more competitive with competitors like AirPods and AirPods Pro. After all, the Ear 1 buds already have a lot of premium features.

You know you can turn on a HomeKit accessory by talking to Siri, but are you aware you can order devices to turn on or off at some point in the future just as easily?

Here’s how to set impromptu schedules for your HomeKit accessories with Siri commands — and why you might want to.

Fitness tracker company Garmin showed a new version of its Venu 2 Plus GPS smartwatch at CES 2022 — and this one let’s you talk to Apple’s voice-activated assistant, Siri. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Or, if you’re among the many folks who seem to prefer other helpers on their devices, you could talk to Google Assistant or Samsung’s Bixby. Previous Garmin smartwatches didn’t allow that. Plus the Venu 2 Plus works with both iOS and Android devices, Garmin said.

Taking Apple products and patents for inspiration, A UK-based vehicle-leasing company called Vanarama has offered a detailed look at what it thinks the first Apple Car could look like. You can explore the 3D concept render inside and out.