Big changes are coming to Siri, Apple’s intelligent voice-activated assistant. For the first time, Siri will be available on the Mac and will be opened to third-party developers on iOS.
While Siri was one of the first voice-controlled AI assistants on the market, it’s fallen behind competitors like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Now, largely because it was a closed system that worked only in Apple’s apps. Opening it to developers makes it much more functional, and presents a more serious challenge to upstarts like Viv that promise to help with a wide range of services and tasks.
Photo: Apple
Siri will be available in the next version of macOS, called Sierra, Apple just announced at the company’s WWDC keynote. macOS Sierra be released to the public in the fall.
Previously, Siri was available only on iOS on iPhone and iPad. Opening it up on the Mac is a significant step, expanding the number of devices the AI assistant works on. It’s also another example of Apple bringing features on iOS to its computers.
Onstage, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, showed how Siri can help with basic productivity tasks like creating a document on your computer.
Federighi performed a simple file search for some documents, which he then refined with another command to show just a subset of those documents.
“It’s the same Siri we know and love,” he said, “but it allows you to do so much more with sophisticated queries for files on the Mac.”
Federighi then performed a web search for some images and asked Siri to play some music. He did this without leaving his full-screen app.
In all, Siri appeared to be a good alternative to Finder.
Federighi also said Siri will be opened up to third-party developers on iOS. Developers will be able to use Siri for a number of tasks, including:
- Messaging — send messages with apps like iMessage and Slack.
- Ride hailing — call for a ride on Uber or Lyft.
- Photo Search — search for images on Web or apps like Pinterest.
- Workouts — Siri can call up workouts.
- Payments — Siri can send payments to friends, say, in various payment apps.
- VOIP calling — Siri can make VOIP calls in apps like Vonage and Skype.
- Car — works with CarPlay.
Federighi characterized Siri for developers as an “intense API,” but was light on the details. There was no indication of how developers would tap into the API, or whether it would do things like work offline.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
