As expected, Apple on Monday unveiled a new version of its virtual assistant Siri at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote.
Siri, which was introduced in 2011 as an exclusive feature of the iPhone 4S, currently works on iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, Apple Watches, and Mac computers. Here’s what Apple unveiled with regards to Siri on Monday:
- Siri is used by more than 375 million devices each month. It’s available in more languages (21) and more countries (36) than any other assistant. Apple is upgrading the interface of dealing with Siri. The company used deep learning to create a new, more expressive voices for Siri, in both male and female tones. Apple demoed Siri saying “sunny” in three different ways. There’s a new visual interface, and Siri will now give you multiple results when you ask a query. Siri can now translate for you. You can ask Siri “What are your most popular dishes, in Chinese?” and it will translate your words into Chinese for you, with a written translation as well. It will support, Chinese, French, German, Italian and others at first, with more to come later. Siri not only understands your voice, but will now understand context and your personal interests, including how you use your device, to predict what you’re going to want next. In iOS 11, Siri uses on-device learning to learn more about what topics are of interest to us, and help us respond to questions within Messages. This information is synced across devices so it’s always helpful, no matter what device you’re using, but it’s encrypted end-to-end, so it’s completely private. There’s a new Siri watchface on Apple Watches, thanks to the newest watchOS update. It’ll show you information at a glance, like appointments that day and information about your commute. You can twist the Watch’s digital crown to see more information.
iOS 11 will launch later this year. Read more about the new update for iPhones and iPads.