iOS 18 Siri will better understand people, events, locations – report

A new report says that iOS 18 Siri features will include a better contextual understanding of things like people, companies, events, and locations.

A new ‘catch-up’ feature is also said to be included in the AI feature-set, where you can ask Siri to bring you up to speed on notifications you’ve received while away from your phone …

AppleInsider cites its own unnamed sources.

People familiar with the matter have revealed that […] Siri will be able to take into account entities such as people and companies, calendar events, locations, dates, and much more […] when generating replies and summaries […]

In pre-release versions of Apple’s operating systems, the company has been working on a notification summarization feature known as “Greymatter Catch Up.” The feature is tied to Siri, meaning that users will be able to request and receive an overview of their recent notifications through the virtual assistant.

‘Greymatter’ is believed to be Apple’s internal codename for the new AI features in iOS 18.

The site also reiterates its earlier reporting that Siri will also be able to summarize everything from messages to long-form articles.

Apple plans to introduce AI-powered text summarization and transcription to its built-in applications. We have since learned that the company intends to bring these features to Siri as well.

This ultimately means that Siri will be able to answer queries on-device, create summaries of lengthy articles, or transcribe audio as in the updated Notes or Voice Memos applications.

Additionally, improved text-to-speech capabilities are said to provide Siri with more natural voices.

We’re expecting a boost to AI-powered photo editing features, with the report describing “a new Clean Up feature, which will allow users to remove objects from images through the use of generative AI software.”

Apple AI research papers have previously described text-based photo editing, where the user simply describes what they want to do.

Bloomberg has reported that Apple may label the AI features in iOS 18 as a beta or preview, something that would be a rare example of honesty in the field.

Photo by Aidin Geranrekab on Unsplash