Siri

A survey by Creative Strategies found that while almost all American iPhone users have at least tried Siri, only 3% have ever used it in public. The firm expresses surprise at the apparent reason for this.

With public usage as low as 3% for iPhone users, it seems users are still uncomfortable talking to their devices. Even more fascinating is this happens in the US where consumers are accustomed to talking loudly on phones in public.

Highest usage of Siri was, unsurprisingly, in the car, where it hit 62%. Use at home averaged 39% across all the voice assistants surveyed, falling to just 1.3% at work where both the embarrassment factor and a desire not to disturb others likely combine …

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Apple’s WWDC 2016 will be light on new hardware announcements this year, but that will give the company plenty of stage time to show off big new releases on the software side. Siri for Mac, a Siri SDK for developers, an Apple Music and iTunes refresh, Touch ID features, and possibly a first look at new Macs, Apple has a lot of interesting in-development projects it could show off for Macs and OS X 10.12 at WWDC 2016. Below we roundup the rumored features for the next release of Apple’s Mac operating system and explore some of the possible new hardware we might see at the event later this month.

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When Siri originally launched on the iPhone a little over four years ago, we postulated that it would be a world-changing event. A personal assistant in our pockets that could handle real-world requests felt like the future. When it launched onto the Apple Watch, it was described as potentially being the quickest and most fun way to interact with the wearable. Then when it came to  the Apple TV, it became the fastest way to disseminate the content you want to watch across multiple apps.

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When the original developers of Siri jumped ship to develop a competing intelligent assistant called Viv, they dismissed Apple’s implementation of their intelligent assistant as just ‘a clever AI chatbot.’ We’ve since heard that Apple plans to offer a Siri SDK that will allow it to call on the capabilities of third-party apps (something I called for last year) – but it seems like the company is also seeking to go even beyond Viv’s capabilities.

Apple last year acquired British intelligent assistant developer VocalIQ – a tool specifically geared to truly conversational queries – and a source who spoke to Business Insider gave some insight into just how intelligent Siri could become when infused with this tech …

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Amazon was first with its Echo Wi-Fi speaker — a dedicated, standalone hub for its Alexa virtual assistant software — and now word has it Apple is working on a similar product for Siri. The several reports this week detailing Apple’s plans followed Google’s unveiling of its competitive Home hardware and Assistant platform at its Google I/O developer conference earlier this month. But what exactly will Apple’s competitor look like? And how will its reported plans for a Siri SDK play into its approach?

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Earlier this week it was reported that Apple may announce a Siri SDK and Amazon Echo-like Siri speaker at WWDC next month. The software development kit would allow developers to integrate apps with the voice assistant, and a Siri speaker would compete with Amazon’s Alexa and the upcoming Google Home. Adding to the rumors, a new report suggests this product may not be available until sometime next year, but could feature cameras with facial recognition features that stand out from Amazon’s and Google’s products.

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As we approach Apple’s WWDC 2016 developer conference scheduled for June 13-17, there are more than a few reported in-development features and fixes that are likely candidates for stage time. An Apple Music revamp, Apple Pay updates, improvements for the App Store, and new features for HomeKit, Siri, and Apple News are just a few possibilities for Apple’s event next month. Below we roundup those features and much more as we take a look at the most likely new iPhone and iPad features in the works for iOS 10:

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Last year, I wrote a Feature Request asking that Apple give third-party apps access to Siri, and generally work at beefing-up both the intelligence and the capabilities of its intelligent assistant. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an opinion piece pointing to the fact that Viv is exactly what Siri should have been by now.

This week, a report suggests that I may finally be getting my wish. Apple is said to be not only planning to offer a Siri SDK to all developers, but also building an Amazon Echo/Google Home type box that will embed Siri more deeply in the home through integration with HomeKit. We will, says the report, find out more at WWDC.

If true, the implications could be profound – perhaps even meaning that we’ve hit ‘peak app’ …

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9to5Mac first reported back in February that Apple is planning to finally bring Siri to the Mac starting with OS X 10.12 later this year. Apple’s voice assistant started on the iPhone in 2011 and has since made its way to the iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, so bringing it to the Mac is expected to be a tent pole feature in the next major software update. With the next big update to the Mac operating system set to be introduced in a few weeks at WWDC, new images have surfaced purportedly showing how Siri’s iconography will appear on the Mac.

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As long-time readers will know, I’ve long been a fan of Siri. As I’ve often noted, it’s my primary means of interacting with my iPhone (part of the reason I don’t need a larger screen). I dictate most of my messages, and if it’s possible to ask Siri to do something for me rather than doing it myself, I do.

But Siri does have one major failing: it has no access to third-party apps. There are countless apps where I’d love to be able to get Siri to do the heavy lifting, as I wrote last year in a Feature Request:

What I can’t yet do is ask the time of my next train home, despite having an app on my phone that can answer that question. I can’t ask it to show me today’s Timehop, nor can I ask it to post that to Facebook. I can’t ask it to post something to a Hipchat or Slack chatroom. I can’t ask it to call an Uber car. I can’t ask it to translate ‘Where is the nearest pharmacy’ into Mandarin. I could name many other examples, but you get the idea.

If Apple offered an API to allow third-party developers to take advantage of Siri, I’m confident that many would do so. And I’m certainly not alone in wanting that – in our poll, 95% of you agreed with me.

But it turns out that Siri’s original developers wanted to take things a step further …

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Last week, the creators of Siri teased their next virtual assistant service named Viv. At the time, the creators said that Viv does more than Siri or any other virtual assistant currently available. As expected, Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus today took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City to officially show off Viv to the public for the first time, touting that it will “the intelligent interface for everything.”

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Apple has once again recruited actor Neil Patrick Harris alongside Siri to star in its latest iPhone 6s ad. The new commercial features NPH using the ‘Hey Siri’ voice command to read a legendary thank you speech from the Notes app … all completely hands-free.

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What’s the one thing cooler than using an Apple Watch app to summon your Tesla from the garage to your front door? Asking Siri to do it for you. That’s what developer Sam Gabbay has achieved, using Apple’s HomeKit.

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The original minds behind the iOS virtual assistant Siri have a new project in the works. A new report from The Washington Post details that Siri’s creators are working on an artificial intelligence technology called “Viv” that does more than Siri or any other virtual assistant currently available.

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Apple has agreed to pay $24.9M to settle a long-running lawsuit alleging that Siri violated a patent owned by a New York institute and exclusively licensed to a company in Dallas. The patent predates the launch of Siri by four years.

The Albany Business Review notes that Apple was sued not by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which holds the patent, but by Dallas-based Dynamic Advances, which licensed it. The company reportedly receives $5M now, and the balance after meeting unspecified conditions. In return, Apple gets a license to use the patented technology for three years.

The settlement means that the patent trial, due to take place in New York next month, will no longer proceed. However, that may not be the end of it …

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Earlier this week Apple TV added CBS and the newly launched Starz app to its growing list of universal search channels, which lets you use Siri or the Search app to find movies and TV shows across multiple channels in a single search. Now Siri has learned another new skill called Live Tune-In, which lets you easily jump right into live programming with a single voice command using Siri Remote.

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When Apple released iOS 9.3.1, it removed the ability to keep Night Shift and Low Power Mode enabled simultaneously. The ability to turn on both features was already hidden and only possible by using Siri, but the iOS 9.3.1 update made it so that Siri would disable one of them before enabling another.

We’ve found a workaround that once again allows you to use both modes at once. It’s not as easy as it once was, but it’s still fairly straightforward for those of you who desire to use Low Power Mode and Night Shift mode at the same time.
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Early this morning, we told you about a new iPhone 6s passcode bypass vulnerability that allowed handlers to access photos and contact details without needing to verify with a passcode or Touch ID. The Lock screen vulnerability was made possible by Siri, and let users bypass the security provided by the Lock screen passcode and/or Touch ID.

If there’s a positive spin to put on such a vulnerability, it’s that fixes can be implemented server side without the need for an iOS update. Apple today has fixed the passcode bypass method by forcing Siri to request your Lock screen passcode whenever a user tries to search Twitter via Siri while at a secured Lock screen
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