What can we expect when Apple previews iOS 5 at this year’s WWDC starting on June 6th? More robust integration with MobileMe’s forthcoming digital locker feature, that’s for sure, but what else?
For a hint, look at Cupertino’s acquisitions over the last year, says TechCrunch’s MG Siegler. He points to Apple’s 2010 acquisition of Siri, a startup branding its services as those of a virtual personal assistant.
Siri released a cool iPhone app that allowed you to ask your phone real world questions and have it cough up and map answers to you. For example, ask “Where is the nearest Starbucks?” and Siri would draw you a map, complete with walking instructions, as well as allow you to call them with just the click of a button. Ask “What’s playing at the local drive-in?” might pull up showtimes.
Very swift stuff, and now it’s being reported that Apple has deep baked Siri functionality right into iOS 5. That’s always been the rumor, but the idea of iOS doing this sort of stuff natively is just so sweet it’s liable to make one a little nauseous if they think too long on it.
