Apple currently plans to use its next major release of the Mac operating system, known as OS X 10.12, this fall to continue to expand Siri across its product lines. Last year, Apple implemented Siri as cornerstone features of both the Apple Watch and new Apple TV, and for 2016, Siri is planned to finally make its way to the Mac.
Apple had been testing versions of OS X internally with Siri integration since at least 2012, but sources now say that Apple has a clear vision for Siri on the Mac along with a polished user-interface and is nearly ready to launch the feature publicly. Apple is expected to introduce OS X 10.12 in June at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
Instead of integrating Siri as a swipe menu akin to the Mac’s Notification Center or as a full screen view like on the iPhone and even the iPad Pro, Siri for the Mac will live in the Mac’s Menu Bar. Similar to the Spotlight magnifying glass icon for search and notifications icon for Notification Center, a Siri icon in the top right corner of the menu bar will activate the voice control feature.
When a user clicks the Siri button, a dark, transparent Siri interface will appear in the top right corner of the screen, as shown in our mockup by Michael Steeber. This interface will feature colorful sound waves to indicate speech input. The interface design in testing is not finalized and may still change before the summer introduction, according to sources.
Siri on the Mac will have its own pane in System Preferences and users are said to also have the option to choose a keyboard shortcut for activating the service. Like with recent versions of iOS, users will be able to enable Siri at the first startup of OS X 10.12, according to sources. If the Mac running the new OS X version is plugged into power, a “Hey Siri” command will work much like with recent iPhone and iPad models.
Codenamed “Fuji,” OS X 10.12 is also planned to include minor user-interface tweaks across core system application windows, but the changes will not be as notable as those in 2014’s OS X Yosemite update. Apple is also continuing its performance-focused engineering efforts emphasized in OS X El Capitan last year. The company is also developing iOS 10 for the fall, and we’ll be posting details on that in the near future.
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Finally!
Exciting news… let’s hope Siri itself gets a good update as well because in my opinion its trailing far behind Google’s offerings. I’ve given up with doing web searches via Siri on iPhone, instead opting to open up Google’s app and use ‘Ok Google’ – far far more accurate and reliable.
In my opinion, it’s great that Apple is adding Siri to OS X. Google’s offering has been falling behind Siri … Google is far over-focused on monetizing search results and under-focused on design and investment in app development. Yes, money is important – but Google can’t do that successfully forever if they keep making bad management decisions, undermining Google developers’ ability to develop a quality app. These flawed Google marketing-level decisions very much annoy the average user. Now I do web searches and much, much more with Siri, simply because it works better and more reliably than Google’s app.
I’m wondering if the issue doesn’t have more to do with the underlying web service. Siri draws from multiple sources, though much of the results come via Bing. Google search remains significantly better.
I agree Google Now is a little better with search, but for actually assisting me with emails, texting, turning on lights…etc Siri blows Google Now out of the water. At least in my usage of the 2 services. And Now On Tap is a joke when it works that is.
Google Now is on OS X? I just looked, I don’t see any Google Now for OS X. Is there something I’m missing? This article is about OS X, not IOS or Android.
I’m exactly the same! Siri is just not very good…sad but true.
I would agree that Google Now is better at some things but it comes at the cost of your data on their servers whereas Apple does as much processing as possible on the devices they sell. In light of recent events I think this protects their users more.
Well, I don’t use either for web searches. I’ve found both to be equally unreliable. I can’t use either when in a noisy environment because they simply don’t capture what I’m requesting very accurately.
I do use Siri for making appointments and setting alarms which I do quite often and it’s pretty damn reliable for that. As far as doing web searches? I tried both Siri and Google Now back over a year ago and both of them sucked equally. I do most of my internet searches on my computer, so if it gets Siri, I’ll try it out and see if it works well.
I think the majority of users simply really don’t use voice control regardless of the platform. Conditioning people to use Siri, or Google or Cortana is just something that society will eventually get used to doing, but this is all work in process and don’t expect anything more than it actually does.
It’s a nice addition to OS X, but it’s not a deal breaker for me. I think Apple was more concerned about cleaning up OS X first before they start to add more resource intensive features.
Hope its adopt the Malay language too as how it has been adopted for iOS 9.3. Quite accurate so far and I hope to see more South East Asia love for Siri.
This will dump a load of mac’s into obsolete land as you’ll no doubt need beam-forming mics for this feature to work.
or just use any of the default apple headphones that have a built in mic. And yes. Everyone is going to trash their $1500 mac for this one feature we’ve all lived without for years.
Everything has to be sensationalized.
No, it won’t. It would just not work on these older Macs like the way AirPlay doesn’t work on older BT Macs.
We’ve been able to use voice commands on macs for way longer than siri has been around and dictation works on the mac now without it.
They wouldn’t fully disable siri just for that on all hardware. My 4s uses siri and doesn’t have the fancy new mics it just doesn’t support hey siri.
I’m not sure why “beam-forming mics” would suddenly be required for Siri voice-to-text input.
Voice-to-text input technology is not only mature, but it is fully functional on all Macs that run Yosemite and El Cap. I use it every day.
Say what? I used voice recognition in Mac OS 9 on a G3 iMac.
Awesome, about time too!
Hopefully it can handel keyboard input as well, It’s still awkward to use siri publicly, especially in the office.
Keyboard input (integrated in spotlight for example) would make it much more useful on the desktop.
I don’t use Siri but didn’t they improve Siri on iOS to let you edit the input? If yes, I’d imagine they’d bring it over to OS X.
Yes, but you can’t start a new message via typing. You still have to start by speaking to Siri, which some people find annoying.
It would make much more sense for Siri to be integrated into Spotlight. Cmd-space and talk… (if you don’t want to type).
This is how I thought they were going to do it, especially after integrating weather results etc in Spotlight. Maybe results for some kinds of commands will still appear within Spotlight when initiated from Siri. Or maybe they still intend to merge them somehow.
I just want OS X’s dictation feature to be not-terrible. Hopefully that happens along with this.
The problem with OS X’s dictation has more to do with the microphone quality and distance than the software.
They better not make it need to be plugged in. Make that an option. I understood for iPhone but this is a Mac.
I would expect this to only work for plugged-in Macs, or laptops with a dedicated co-processor when not plugged in.
You mean different than this comment in the article?? ” If the Mac running the new OS X version is plugged into power, a “Hey Siri” command will work much like with recent iPhone and iPad models.”
Agreed. WTF!??! It better not require my MacBook Pro be PLUGGED IN FOR POWER for “Hey Siri” to work. I’d be willing to give up a few minutes of battery life for that “always on” (even while wireless) convenience.
Come on, Apple!
I See No Source Cited, So IMHO, It’s Speculation !!
You apparently don’t know who Mark Gurman is or how reliable his sources are.
You’re joking? Mark Gurman is on the top few sources we have for feature leaks. He is far more reliable than anybody else.
This is the source: 9to5mac.
This is awesome!
About f-in time…
Oh yeah, finally!
When you say “hey Siri”, how are your devices supposed to know which one you are addressing? Surely “hey iPhone” or “hey Mac” (or “hey iPad”) would be more suitable?
@Nail by using HandOffto dtermine what device listening or in use. When I activate the Apple Watch and say “Hey Siri, when I my appointment this and that”, it goes to the watch. The iPhone remains dark and silent, even though it lies right in front off me and will react to exactly this phrase when my Apple Watch is dark.
What will happen when you say ‘Hey Siri when you have an iPad Air 3, iPhone 6S and Mac in the same room?
I hope Apple will find some way for the 3 devices to communicate with each other via bluetooth to tell each other ‘it’s ok, I got this’ so not all devices wake up and listen to what you have to say to Siri.
“What will happen when you say ‘Hey Siri when you have an iPad Air 3, iPhone 6S and Mac in the same room?”
Is this some Greek joke I’m not getting?
Hahaha.
No, not at all. It’s a genuine question.
Sorry for my lame humor. Yes, indeed a valid question. Perhaps that’s why ‘it took Apple this long’ for them to come up with a solution? I really have no idea, and look forward to the feature.
They already do this for handoff and notifications. Notifs will buzz on the “active” device first. Usually, the one you’re using or most recently used within a time window. Then they buzz on the next.
If you’re typing on your laptop, Siri will probably be active there. Just as you get your iMessages there.
But I mean when you’re in your room and not using any device. And you want to tell Siri to remind you to do something. You will say ‘Hey Siri’. But which device will wake up and listen and reply to your questions?
Yeah, this would be helpful. Perhaps a preference that lists your devices in order of priority for Hey Siri would work? Not sure but definitely something to think about.
This is my biggest complaint right now with my 6S plus and my Apple Watch while I’m driving. Hey Siri works great on my phone, responsive, fast and generally pretty accurate. Siri on the Apple Watch is sluggish, huge lag time and have the commands get sent to my iPhone anyways. Problem is when I say Hey Siri in my car, my phone sometimes ignores me, so I repeat three of four times . . . . five seconds pass and Siri on my watch finally gets going but is then confused by the multiple Hey Siris from me and goes into a spinning confused mess.
This has to be one of the most annoying UI issues with Hey Siri and I can’t possibly be alone with this issue.
“Launch Photoshop”
cmd + space > p > enter.
app launching is the least useful function of natural language processing when you have access to a keyboard all the time.
The power is in stringing together multiple steps into one sentence: “remind me to Photoshop my sister’s wedding pictures tonight at 7:00” – that avoids ever launching an app or typing into multiple fields.
Apple tv shows how stringing sentences is really good for going through search results and narrowing down topics with various tags and osx’s spotlight features have gotten better self identifying tags and actually using tags. We may also get an api to launch functions directly in 3rd party apps. The search indexing and deep linking in ios 9 seem to be steps toward that.
Makes me hopeful that this also means 3rd party Siri integration + other improvements.
Finally!! This has been a long time coming. Personally I’d use siri way more on my laptop (which I mostly use at home) than on my iPhone (which I mostly use when I’m with other people). Totally agree with others though that it’d be even more useful with keyboard input – i.e. I’d like to be able to type into Spotlight what I’d say to Siri and have Siri answer it/have Spotlight answer it just as Siri would.
With my luck, it’ll kick in for iMacs newer than 2008. Fingers crossed it won’t though!
Apple is a bipolar patient
pretending to safeguare a terrorist’s phone accordng to the “freedom of speech principle”…
but letting you shout in your office “siri remind me to buy tampons” or “siri take a note new bank avcount code 5555”
That is a new software evolution
http://www.burningshadow.dk/Galleries/Facepalm/Facepalm3.jpg
The problem isn’t with Apple, it’s with you not understanding the differences between both of them. Apple has never claimed this to be a freedom of speech issue, no one has said this “yet”.
Apple isn’t safeguarding a terrorist, they’re ensuring the rights of a device owner’s over the government’s intrusion into the device’s security, take terrorism out of the picture and you can see the problem clearly.
Terrorism has absolutely nothing to do with this issue, the FBI chose this case intentionally to exploit the emotions of Americans but it changes nothing about the facts. Let’s not forget that the FBI has the same requests in more than 15 cases around the country that has nothing to do with terrorism as well.
The government does not have the right to compel a private company or private citizen to do their work and the laws need to be clear. The All Writs law is an 18th century law that shouldn’t be abused to apply to a 21st century problem. Apple is correct into forcing the issue into a congressional action.
Thank you to the person that put the Trippple FacePalm! This comment serves to show the lack of understanding that some people have between personal choice and forced intrusion with the high likelihood of mass manipulation. I’m a conservative which is why I get personal choice but also believe in my right to privacy and even more… Security! Apple gives the ability for the FBI to crack one phone, it soon becomes available to hackers and governments all over the world!
Emotionally AND Logically we want/should find out everything we can to get justice for what happens to innocent people. It shouldn’t come at the cost of breaking the security of everyone around the world!
If you are too silly to realize that you are shouting personal information in a room full of people you shouldn’t trust, then that is your fault. To give the masses the ability to use such a handy feature, more power to them!
Siri. That’s nice. You know pretty soon all new computers except Macs will have touch screens. Just saying.
I most certainly hope that’s not the case. That would mean there will be a flooding of new Mac owners after they discover how useless touchscreens are when they’re vertical. And one thing the Mac community does not need is in influx of stupid new Mac users.
i wish siri could do “multi-lingual” commands or questions etc.
e.g. show me how to get to (insert foreign-language street here)? or who sang (insert e.g. spanish song title here)?
or if one lives in a multi-lingual household… asking in spanish or english should be possible without changing the settings.
El Capitan was bloody awful on improvements I know its free and I’m very grateful but dont you guys ever remember the days where it was exciting to mess about and use cool need features on new releases. And if Siri is the headline addition then we’re on the way to a pretty disappointing WWDC (for OS X)! El Capitan was the biggest disappointment, I personally weren’t excited when it released as it didn’t bring anything that amazing to the OS. I think we should expect under the hood improvements at the same time as features after all apple should have hundreds of programmers working on OSX (especially after the reveal at WWDC). Awesome features was like Messages (10.8), Launchpad (10.7), FaceTime (10.7), Continuity (10.10), Notification Centre (10.8). That’s just some!
Would love it if they’d actually make Siri better. For example, I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday. I wanted to know what time it was. I said, “Hey Siri… What time is my doctor’s appointment today?” She couldnt find any appointment relating to “Doctor.” Then I asked it a different way that worked. I said, “Hey Siri… What time is my next appointment?” She told me the time and asked if I wanted details. I said yes, and she read me the details. She read the appointment title, including the word Doctor. Why couldn’t she find the appointment in the first place? Natural language support is still pretty elusive.
Sorry, but I have to call BS on that claim. As an example, I just asked Siri… ” when is my next doctor appointment” and it correctly identified the appointment and date. You’re either not spelling the word “doctor” correctly or you are just making up nonsense as your complaint is demonstrably false.
Hello Knowledge Navigator ! (Apple “future” video from 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb4AzF6wEoc
I guarantee it’ll be a feature for 2016 Mac’s only
“guarantee?” wanna bet?
thanks for the news ;)
Siri’s use of Nuance speech recognition technology costs Apple money–and costs even more for the more accurate version first used by the Watch–which I expect is /one/ of several reasons it hasn’t made it to the Mac yet.
Dude, do you not know how much money Apple has? Apple has billions of billions of dollars.
I’m not really sure why some seem to think this is a big deal. Apple has effectively put the power of the Siri back-end behind the results of Spotlight already. The only difference here would be voice search, etc. Perhaps they’ve added system integration to perform tasks, etc. as well.
I am sure I speak for most people, But i would like to have the performance driven updates in a update to each major OS (like 10.11.x) like they did (among other things in Snow Leopard and such. While most fanboys will understand Apple’s intent with their upgrade plan/cycle, there will be a lot of blogs and sites that will attempt to skewer them and draw comparisons to Google or Android and their updates.
Just my 2 cents.
Finally! Now add Touch ID please.
Totally agree, Touch ID would be awesome.
Yes! AWESOME!
This is great, but it will not be “amazing” unless it is extendable. Open up the API please Apple.
https://dribbble.com/shots/568055-Siri-for-Mac Totally called this in 2012. Boom.
Awesome, but it would be perfect if we can have Always On “Hey Siri”
awesome awesome awesome….I love siri
About Time Siri Came too Macintosh. why did it take so long.
Those saying OK Google is falling behind siri have it totally wrong/backwards. OK Google is FAR better than siri on my mobile devices. S7 Edge running MM VS iOs latest version running on the best of the best 6S Plus and Google is far more accurate and quicker to produce answers. Don’t get me wrong I love both and can’t wait until siri hits the desktop OS in Fall…Man I wish I could get it now but even the dev previews and betas don’t have it yet.Can’t wait!!!
Well, six days ago there weren’t any develope preview for the next macOS (nee OS X). I tried it today to check one of our apps and yes, Siri is in the first developer preview and it works, even in German. “Hey Siri” doesn’t seem to be supported, though, but I guess this could be achieved via 3rd party apps.