Siri - page 36

Today, three months after its first preview at WWDC, iOS 6 has been released to the public and is now available to download via iTunes. We’ve already presented you with a comprehensive guide to everything that’s new — big and small — but which of those features really stands out?

So that you can jump into iOS 6 and quickly start using its killer new features, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten for you to check out. These may not necessarily be the biggest features Apple has introduced, but we’re confident that once you start using them, you’ll agree that they’re the best.

We’ve all been itching to get our hands on iOS 6 since it got its first unveiling at WWDC back in June, and today, three months after that announcement, the software finally gets its public debut. Apple’s packed a ton of new features into this update, including some major new features like Map and Passbook, plus some enhancements to existing apps and features, such as new Siri capabilities and a VIP inbox in Mail.

Apple’s been promoting some of these features on its website, but there are tons you may not have heard about. With that said, here’s your comprehensive guide to everything that’s new in iOS 6.

Apple has finally released iOS 6 to the public, more than three months after the software was first previewed at WWDC. It brings more than 200 new features to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, including Apple’s brand new Maps and Passbook apps, Facebook integration, FaceTime over cellular, enhancements to Siri, Mail, and Phone, and lots, lots more.

OmniFocus for iPad just got a big old update, and it adds two huge features, along with the usual tweaks (and in this case, iOS 6 compatibility).

Now, iPad users can enter tasks using Siri, and everyone can take advantage of TextExpander Touch support.

Apple’s clearly very proud of Siri, and so despite its shortcomings, it’s unlikely you’ll see it disappearing anytime soon. In fact, it’s more likely that you’ll be seeing Siri a lot more in future. It seems inevitable that the voice-controlled assistant will one day come to the Mac, and when it does, there’s a chance you’ll be able to control iTunes using only your voice.

At least that’s what Apple’s latest patent filing suggests.

Apple’s hardware product lines might be clean and sparse to the point of obsession, but behind the scenes it’s another story. Take iOS 6, for example. While yesterday’s Apple keynote showed off plenty of new features, many of them are location dependent. And I’m not talking about maps here – many features are switched off outside of the U.S, and just which one’s you can use depends on the country you’re in.

Apple’s beloved digital assistant is up to no good again. Nick Bilton of The New York Times tweeted a fun screenshot just moments ago. When asked about the iPhone 5, Siri redirects to Apple’s “fabulous website” for more information. As we already told you, Apple’s online search engine leaked the iPhone 5 earlier today.

Less than an hour until the keynote starts!

Source: @nickbilton

Tim Cook and the gang at Apple were in full force at yesterday’s keynote. Yes, the iPhone 5 was announced, but there was so much more than that. EarPods, Lighting, crazy new iSight cameras, iTunes, and much more.

The keynote was packed with info, but we’ve broken everything down  into delicious bite-size information nuggets so you can know all of the essentials of what happened today without having to read 3000 different blog posts.

Here’s everything that Apple announced at today’s keynote:

Former Siri CEO Dag Kittlaus left Apple last year, and now the revolutionary platform’s other co-founder has reportedly left Apple as well. According to Bloomberg, Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer recently left Apple for unknown reasons.

Apple bought Siri back in April of 2010 for a rumored $200 million, and Siri has since become a staple feature of the iPhone 4S and iPad. Given the imminent public release of the new and improved Siri in iOS 6, Cheyer’s departure is interestingly timed.

Audience, the company behind the EarSmart technology used to power Siri in the iPhone 4S, has issued a statement insisting it is “unlikely” Apple will use its technology in the iPhone 5. It helped Apple develop part of the A5 chip that enables the iPhone to filter out background noise while you’re using Siri, but it seems Apple no longer needs its help.

Could IBM’s Watson replace Siri? That’s an interesting question and IBM’s answer appears to be yes. Big Blue is working to turn the supercomputing solution that made news when it beat Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter into an app that could run on a smartphone. If successful, IBM will turn Watson into a supercharged version of Apple’s digital assistant.

It’s been over two years since Apple unveiled iOS 4 with mobile management features designed to make the iPhone and iPad a significantly better corporate citizen. During those years, the landscape of business and enterprise mobility has changed dramatically. RIM has collapsed and will never truly recover, Microsoft has doubled down on the interface it launched late in 2010 with no guarantee of success, and Android has become much more enterprise friendly. Perhaps more important is the fact that idea of mobile management and security has shifted from a focus on devices to a focus on securing data and managing mobile apps.

As all this has happened, Apple’s mobile management framework, which is the system that all mobile management vendors plug into in order to secure and manage iOS devices, has essentially stagnated. With iOS 6 on the horizon, lets look at the areas that Apple needs to address if it wants iOS to remain one of the preferred mobile platforms for business.

Wayne Goodrich, a former Apple employee who produced and coordinated the company’s hugely popular keynote presentations, is suing the Cupertino company for wrongful termination after he was fired for “business reasons” — despite being promised job security by former CEO Steve Jobs.

Apple parody commercials are nothing new, but this is the first I’ve seen for the upcoming iPhone 5. According to video artist and creator Adam Sacks, Apple’s next iPhone will be perfectly suited to those who feel the need to take pictures of their food “to create the illusion of a fulfilling life.”

Apple and Google haven’t exactly been been on the best of terms in recent years. The stock YouTube iOS app disappearing is a more recent example of the bad blood between the two companies. Google tried its best to sherlock Apple’s 3D technology in the iOS 6 Maps app, and many moves Apple and Google make can be seen as direct outcomes of the bad blood Steve Jobs spoke of when he vowed to wage thermonuclear war on Android.

Apple and Google may hate each other, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t compete in the same markets. Today Google lifted the curtain on a major update that’s coming to its iOS Search app. The new version of the app will feature smart, contextual voice recognition that clearly mimics Apple’s own digital assistant, Siri.

Today, Apple re-uploaded the newest Siri ad, the one featuring Martin Scorsese, to its YouTube channel. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this type of thing happen on their channel, so I went to investigate.

It turns out that Apple just has a remarkable attention to detail. Thanks to the numerous people who always upload Apple’s ads, I was able to compare the new upload to the original. Here’s what I found.

If you’ve been watching the App Store, you may have noticed iTranslate Voice, a translation tool that looks a lot like Siri, rise to the top. iTranslate Voice does just what you’d expect: you speak into your phone, and it magically outputs what you’ve said into the language of your choice.

Starting today, iTranslate Voice is now available on the iPad as well.

Apple debuted a new ad for Siri last night starring famed director Martin Scorsese. The ad is basically just Scorsese riding around in a New York City cab talking to Siri about appointments, finding friends, and traffic. Not too exciting. But if you look closely, you may have noticed an easter egg in the film pointing back to Scorsese’s early days of film making.

The number of the taxi Scorcese is riding in is “3S96,” which is the same taxi Robert De Niro’s character drove in Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver. We’re not sure if his appointments were references to any of his other films, but if you spot any other Easter Eggs in the ad let us know in the comments.

Image: Reddit

Following other recent celebrity Siri promos, film director Martin Scorsese has made his way into Apple’s latest TV spot. Scorsese is seen rapid-firing questions at Siri in a taxi cab, asking about appointments, the traffic, and where to find one of his friends.

This new ad follows much the same format of Apple’s other ads featuring Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich, and the infamous Zooey Deschanel “Is that rain?” ad.

You can view the newest ad after the break.

Apple is very quick to jump on rival companies who infringe upon its patents, and the company is currently embroiled in a number of legal battles with the likes of Samsung and HTC. But sometimes, Apple is on the receiving end of these complaints. In China, the Cupertino company is being sued for infringing upon a voice assistant patent with its Siri feature.

When Google announced Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), they showed off the new voice actions as well as search cards. Naturally, everyone soon became curious about how the new voice actions compared to its Apple competitor and voice assistant Siri. While most Androidians didn’t have a spare iPhone 4S on hand, one blogger for TechnoBuffalo did, and was kind enough to put them to the test.

Although it sometimes doesn’t understand everything you say, it’s hard not to like Siri. After all, the voice-controlled assistant has made it easier then ever to perform all kinds of tasks on a smartphone using only the natural language that we use on a daily basis. But as we are well aware, Siri isn’t perfect.

Especially when it comes to answering your questions. In fact, Apple analyst Gene Munster believes she’s still two years behind Google after she only managed to answer 68% of the 800 questions he asked in a quiet room.

At Google’s own answer to WWDC, the annual I/O conference, the search giant just announced its own answer to Siri: a radically overhauled version of Google Voice Search.

Earlier today, we reported that Siri had leaked Apple’s plans to open up a new retail store in the Broadway shopping center in Sydney, Australia. It seems, however, that it wasn’t such a big secret after all, because the Cupertino company has already begun work on the new outlet, as these images sent into Cult of Mac prove.

Although iOS 6 looks a lot like iOS 5 on the surface, a number of Apple’s built-in apps and services have received some big changes. The biggest overhaul comes to the Maps app, which has done away with Google Maps in favor of Apple’s own 3D mapping service. Another feature you can look forward to in Maps, according to an Apple document sent out to developers, is Yelp check-ins.