We’re all stoked for our first previews of iOS 10 and macOS from WWDC, but according to sources familiar with Apple’s plans, it’s going to be Siri that steals the show.
The virtual assistant is expected to make the leap to the Mac for the first time, and could also open up to third-party apps and services — allowing users to check in for flights, book Uber rides, and do more using only their voice.
Apple’s keynote to kick off this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference is going to be huge. So huge, in fact, that Apple already revealed some stuff early because Tim Cook and his Cupertino cronies won’t have time to cover everything during the jam-packed, two-hour event.
While WWDC might seem like a bit of a snoozefest for Apple fans who don’t know anything about Xcode and Swift, the 2016 edition of the annual developer conference should bring lots of new stuff even normals can get hyped about. The WWDC keynote will give us a peek inside the ever-evolving Apple ecosystem — and thus our clearest picture of the future of all Apple products.
This year, all of Apple’s platforms are set to get major updates, as are some of the company’s most popular services, like Siri and Apple Music. Here’s what to watch for during Apple’s keynote, which will kick off WWDC 2016 next Monday morning in San Francisco.
Apple’s big keynote for WWDC is just a few days away, but if you want some hints about what the company will unveil, just ask Siri.
Apple’s digital assistant won’t spill the beans on iOS 10 or macOS, however asking her questions like “What will happen at WWDC?” currently cause Siri to unleash some hilarious responses that are straight out of Game of Thrones.
Take a look at some of these funny answers:
Whether it’s saving the life of a man trapped beneath a truck or calling 911 after a mom suffered a fainting spell, Siri has proven to be a real life-saver on a few occasions.
The latest such example comes out of Cairns, Australia, when a mother used her iPhone 6s’ “Hey Siri” feature to call an ambulance after her one-year-old daughter stopped breathing.
Apple has begun inviting members of the press to its WWDC 2016 keynote on June 13.
The event kicks off at 10 a.m. PT in the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco, and it should deliver our first sneak peeks at iOS 10 and Apple’s next major upgrades for watchOS, tvOS, and OS X.
Amazon Alexa, the powerful virtual assistant found inside the retail giant’s Echo speaker, is now available in your browser. It can answer your questions and even control your smart devices, and all you need is an Amazon account and a microphone.
Details of Apple’s upcoming Amazon Echo competitor are starting to surface, and it sounds like it could be both Apple’s most futuristic and creepiest product yet.
The iPhone-maker is considering adding a camera to its Echo rival, according to a new report that claims the device will be able to tell who is using it just by looking at you.
Apple is planning to open Siri up to third-party developers and it appears that Apple TV could be the biggest benefactor from the expanded platform.
In order to better compete with Amazon’s Echo devices, Apple reportedly plans to update the Apple TV with more Siri features that will hopefully turn the device into the hub of everything.
The next evolution of Siri could feature a new Apple product designed to directly compete with Amazon’s successful Echo device.
Apple is reportedly planning to make a rival to the Amazon Echo, but the in order to compete with the device’s incredible array of features and services, Apple plans to open up Siri to third-party apps.
At its I/O conference in California this week, Google gave us a preview of the new Google Assistant that’s coming later this year. It’s like Siri, only it’s vastly more intelligent. It does everything you want a digital assistant to do and more.
And just like a lot of Google services, Assistant will be available on iOS — not only in the official Google app, but also inside the new Allo messenger. It will be competing with Apple’s AI in its own backyard, and the Cupertino company should be worried about that.
But can Siri catch up, or have Apple’s rivals now too far ahead in artificial intelligence? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over digital assistants.
Apple’s digital assistant Siri is expected to finally arrive on Macs later this year with the next OS X update, and now it appears that we already know what the new icons will be.
Screenshots of the upcoming Siri for Mac features were leaked online today, revealing the multi-colored wave icon that will soon rest on your dock, along with a new menu bar icon for Siri.
This is what Siri will look like on the Mac:
But is it art? There’s a whole new way of looking at these works, in the form Steve P Jobs himself–or at least his likeness.
Learn all about these odd yet interesting portraits of the late Apple co-founder, including tattoos, technology-art, and the bubble wrap portrait you see above, as you browse this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine.
Inside this deliciously digital magazine-style app, you’ll find out more about possibilities for the new Apple Watch OS, how to retrain Siri to make better sense of your verbalizations, inside the weird world of iPod collectors, and all the reviews and how-tos you need to stay up to date on tech through an Apple lens.
Here are this week’s top stories.
We could all use a personal assistant who’s there to make life that little bit easier, and thanks to Cola, the world’s first smart messaging OS, we can all have one.
Cola is designed to take care of all the small but important things you have to do throughout your day, like arranging meetings and managing to-do lists. And for the first time, it’s opening up to third-party services to become even more powerful.
Have you ever noticed that Siri understands you less and less as the months go by? The digital assistant works great when you first set it up on a shiny new iPhone, but over time, it has a habit of becoming annoyingly inaccurate.
In this week’s Quick Tips video, I’m going to show you how to retrain Siri. By improving its recognition of your voice, you can make it work just as well as it once did.
Check the video out below.
Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, creators of the artificial intelligence technology that brought Siri to the iPhone, today showcased a new virtual assistant that’s even more amazing.
Viv, which has been secretly in development for the past four years, is a much more open platform that works closely with a whole bunch of different services to be even more powerful than its predecessor, and to take AI to a whole new level.
Siri has been gradually getting better since its debut in 2011, but some of its original creators are set to introduce its successor, Viv, next week — and, by all accounts, Siri better watch her back!
Having operated in stealth mode for more than a year, Viv’s arrival hopes to represent a significant step forward in artificial intelligence as AI assistants take on more of an active role in running our lives.
Apple’s next acquisition? It would be great to think so.
Let’s face it: Siri is a pretty astounding bit of technology, but even its creators aren’t going to argue any time soon that it’s quite on the level of HAL 9000, the murderous artificial intelligence seen in Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
As the below hilarious reimagining of one of the film’s most iconic scenes makes abundantly clear. Check it out:
Apple is going hard on Earth Day. Company stores changed their Apple logos green. The App Store has a week-long green app promotion. And today the company has released not one, but two ads.
The second Earth Day video from Apple features Siri and Liam hanging out talking about kale smoothies until Apple’s digital assistant meets its demise.
Watch the new ad below:
Since there is still much to learn about the upcoming iOS 10 debut presumably at WWDC this year, Federico Vittici of MacStories and concept designer Sam Beckett took it upon themselves to bring their dreams to life. They worked together to design an incredible concept video that fulfills Vittici’s wishes for the next version of iOS. The video is nothing short of stunning and their implementation of his (completely reasonable) feature requests will have you absolutely drooling.
A long running lawsuit between Apple and Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has finally come to an end, and it wasn’t cheap for Apple.
The Dallas-based Dynamic Advances sued Apple for allegedly infringing on a 2007 patent. The patent in question was exclusively licenced to the firm by Rensselaer, but Apple violated it with certain voice features used in Siri.
Update: Apple has confirmed that its Worldwide Developers Conference 2016 will take place June 13 through June 17 in San Francisco. The keynote address will rock the stage at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, with the remainder of the week’s sessions at Moscone Center West. See below for registration details.
While Apple has not yet made public the dates or location for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, apparently Siri knows when and where the event will take place.
SPOILER! The last season of Games of Thrones didn’t go too well for Jon Snow, but the internet is seemingly not giving up hope that one of the show’s most popular characters survived an (attempted?) assassination at the hands of the Night’s Watch.
Well, apparently Siri is among the conspiracy theorists not convinced by Snow’s death: With the show’s Season 6 premiere mere days away, Apple’s AI assistant has a few thoughts on whether we’ve seen the last of The Bastard of Winterfell.
Check out the responses below.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Just one day after reports came out of a Siri exploit that left iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users’ photos and contacts accessible without a passcode, Apple has adjusted its digital assistant’s behavior to close the hole.
Just in time for Apple’s new multiyear deal with Major League Baseball, Siri can answer whatever baseball questions you have, thanks to newly implemented knowledge covering 29 baseball leagues. Apple’s AI helper also now boasts a deep understanding of hardball history, based on stats dating back to the start of baseball records.
We’ve all noticed Apple’s latest operating system nomenclature, with each new release a device-centric OS, like iOS, tvOS, or watchOS.
Why not macOS, then?
A bit of source code in the current stable release of OS X (10.11.4) seems to point to that very thing.