No more humans listening to your Siri queries. Well, for now. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple has stopped its process of listening to a certain portion of Siri recordings for “grading” purposes.
This is the result of a backlash against the privacy-oriented company, after news broke that Apple shares recordings made by Siri with third-party contractors.
Siri is always listening (depending on your settings). Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Apple shares recordings made by Siri with third-party contractors, according to a recent report. The goal is to improve Siri’s responses, but the fact is, you probably didn’t know that this was happening — and almost certainly want it to stop.
Today, I will show you how to prevent these diagnostic recordings from going to Apple. The good news? You can do it using only Apple’s tools. The bad news is that you’ll have to get your hands dirty in the process.
Test shows how much battery Dark Mode will save you on certain iPhones Photo: Apple
Developers received a fresh batch of new beta builds this morning in the form of iOS 13 beta 5. Apple seeded the new software updates just under two weeks after the last set of betas came out, bringing fresh changes to mouse support on iPad, smaller quick action menus and tons of bug fixes.
Sometimes Siri is listening when we don’t mean it to. Photo: Apple
It’s been widely reported that voice control systems like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri use people in their quality-improvement process, not just algorithms. But Siri and others might be accidentally overhearing to what we say more than we realize, and humans in the loop are getting an earful.
A new report warns that Apple contractors have heard “confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex.”
iOS 13's new Reminders app. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
We already know that Apple has completely made over the Reminders app in iOS 13, adding a new, more powerful layout, and some excellent quick-entry tools so you don’t have to tap the screen like a million times just to remember to take out the trash when you get home.
But Reminders has also gotten its virtual claws deeper into the rest of iOS. Today we’ll see two great integrations that you might not have heard about yet.
My cheap Kia came with CarPlay as standard. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
iOS 13 doesn’t just mean big improvements for your iPhone. Apple is making some pretty significant enhancements to CarPlay, too, including a brand-new dashboard and better apps.
Some of these great new CarPlay features are long overdue. Here’s everything you can expect from Apple’s in-car platform in iOS 13.
The ability to use Siri to listen to live radio stations is up and running for HomePod users, along with people running the latest iOS 13 beta.
Apple announced the feature at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, boasting support for iHeartRadio, TuneIn and Radio.com streaming radio. That means users can access more than 100,000 different stations using Apple’s AI assistant.
Apple is moving into these two buildings in Seattle. Photo: Kilroy Realty
The mayor of Seattle confirmed today that Apple is making a major play to move into Amazon and Microsoft’s backyard.
During a press conference today, Mayor Jenny A. Durkan revealed that Apple plans to increase its expansion into Seattle by hiring an additional 2,000 employees in the next five years.
The first public beta of iOS 13 is finally available to public testers.
Apple launched iOS 13 public beta 1 and iPadOS public beta 1 this morning. The software gives everyone the opportunity to try out all the new features, like the system-wide Dark Mode that looks absolutely beautiful. However, you might not want to take the jump quite yet.
Would you ask Siri about your medication? Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
If you have a query about your prescription drugs, you’re better off asking Google Assistant than Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. That’s the conclusion of a new piece of research, published in the journal Nature Digital Medicine.
While you’re best off asking a human doctor, of course, the research was intended to see how accurate Google, Amazon and Apple’s AI assistants are at explaining the 50 most commonly prescribed medicines.
This is the building Apple might move into. Photo: Kilroy Realty
Watch out Amazon. Apple is moving into your neighborhood.
The iPhone-maker reportedly is set to lease a large office complex building in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood that is also the home Amazon’s HQ.
Craig Federighi suggested that Apple will consider making change in the future. Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac
Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of software, has suggested to a customer that Apple could correct an irritating UI element for Siri on iPad.
Apple user Juliano Rossi wrote Federighi about the way that the Siri interface takes up the entire iPad screen. This contrasts with Siri on the Mac, where Siri appears in a small popup window.
While Federighi doesn’t confirm that things will change, he does say that Apple will take the point into consideration.
Jamming out on Spotify using Siri is finally possible. Photo: Spotify
One of the best features on Apple Music could soon make its way onto Spotify thanks to iOS 13.
Apple is finally making it possible for Spotify and other music, podcast and audio apps to use Siri. Not being able to integrate with HomePod or Siri were two of Spotify’s many complaints in a recent open letter slamming Apple. When iOS 13 comes out that will finally be possible.
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference is just days away and it’s shaping up to be one of the most software-packed events in the company’s history.
New software for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and more will be shown off for the first time when Tim Cook takes the stage on June 3rd. Most of the event will be focused solely on Apple’s biggest software updates of the year, but there’s a chance we could see some new hardware too.
Maybe you’re one of the non-vocal majority that doesn’t mind the Touch Bar. Perhaps you even like it. And maybe, at the same time, you can’t see the point of Siri on the Mac.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could tailor your MacBook Pro just for you? A lovely, handy, beautiful Touch Bar, only without that dumbo Siri? Well, yes it would. Here’s how to remove Siri from the Macbook’s Touch Bar.
iOS 13 could offer tons of huge improvements to Apple's mobile operating system. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
The last few weeks have been packed with rumors and leaks about what Apple may have in store for us with iOS 13 and macOS 10.15. With so much information coming out day after day, it’s hard to keep track of all the possible rumors.
Fortunately for you, we’ve compiled the full list of expected features coming this year to iOS and macOS. From dark mode to iPad updates, and new Mac apps to Siri improvements, here’s everything we are expecting (so far) in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15.
Even Siri can manage to set alarms and timers without screwing it up. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Siri may still be hopeless, but one thing it’s always been good at is setting alarms. In fact, I don’t use Siri much at all any more1, but for alarms and timers, I use it exclusively. Even with iOS 12’s great 3-D Touch timer widget, Siri is quicker.
Today we’ll see how to tell Siri to create an alarm, set a timer, how to edit an alarm, and how to delete one.
Making an iOS app into a Mac one could some be as easy as pressing a button, thanks to the “Marzipan” project. Photo: Apple
The days of laboriously converting an iPhone or iPad application to run on a Mac are almost over. Soon, preparing an iOS app to run on macOS will reportedly be as simple as the developer checking a checkbox.
This is part of a trove of good news for developers — and users — leaking out today.
One of Google’s top AI experts has left the company to join Apple’s special projects group.
Ian Goodfellow, who created an AI approach called general adversarial networks (GANs), was hired by Apple as a director of machine learning, adding another prominent Google AI expert to its growing team.
Sorry, Alexa: Siri still the most widespread AI assistant Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple has quietly updated the female British voice for Siri. The improvements can be heard today on HomePod and iOS devices.
The update comes just a few weeks after Apple updated the male British voice. It is believed the company could be working on improvements for many of Siri’s international voices.
Apple is hiring someone to track what everyone says about Siri. Photo: Apple
Corporation ISO very patient person to listen to endless complaints about its digital assistant. No phonies.
Apple really did post a job opening for someone to monitor what people are saying about Siri, with an eye to turning complaints into improvements to this beleaguered voice-driven assistant.
Samsung's Unpacked event was actually pretty impressive. Photo: Samsung
Samsung put Apple and the rest of the tech industry on notice today during its massive Unpacked event.
During the biggest tech event of 2019 so far, Samsung unveiled a slew of new smartphones, wearables, earbuds and more. Even though Samsung has a rep for copying Apple — and there was certainly a lot of that at Unpacked — the company is setting the tone for the rest of the industry. Samsung even leapfrogged Apple’s products in some ways.
The company that made Barbie a conversationalist has been bought by Apple. Photo: ToyTalk
Apple’s latest acquisition could give Siri a better chance at competing against Amazon’s popular voice-power assistant, Alexa.
Pullstring, a San Francisco-based startup that specializes in helping developers design, prototype and deploy voice apps has reportedly been purchased by Apple. The company’s platform helps create voice apps for Alexa and Google Assistant, and will likely help Apple make more tools for Siri.