Siri

OpenAI recently launched their official ChatGPT app for the Mac (before Windows). The macOS app brings most of the functionality from the iPhone version to the desktop — no web browser needed.

When it comes to smart assistant availability, Apple has taken a vastly different approach with Siri than Amazon has with Alexa. Whereas the latter assistant can come baked into a variety of non-Amazon smart devices, Apple has largely restricted Siri to its own first-party products. One exception came in late 2021 when ecobee added support for Siri in its SmartThermostat. Now, three years later, a second product has received Siri integration.

We’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about iOS 18 having new AI-powered features, since Apple CEO Tim Cook himself has confirmed many times that the company has been working on generative AI features. Now a report claims that iPhone and iPad users will have the option of summarizing long text messages using AI.

Following on from the announcement of Apple’s second quarter fiscal 2024 results, Apple CEO Tim Cook joined the company’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri on a call with investors. During this call, Cook again teased Apple’s upcoming generative AI and said that the company has advantages over its competitors.

It’s clear that we’re going to see some exciting new Apple AI features this year, and the usual way for the company to announce major new iOS features would be to preview them at WWDC, and then launch them in September with the new iPhone line-up.

But there could be a couple of reasons to hope for some kind of preview of these new features on the new iPad Pro during the May 7 Let Loose Apple event …

For some reason which utterly eludes me, 2024 seems to be the year of AI hardware. We’ve had the Humane AI Pin, the Rabbit R1, and even former Apple design chief Jony Ive reportedly seeking a billion-dollar bet for his own attempt.

Reviews of Humane were brutal, with those who tried it as unimpressed by its performance as they were bemused as to its purpose – and the Rabbit R1 isn’t faring too much better, with Marques Brownlee describing it as “barely reviewable” …

Some reports last month revealed that Apple was in talks with Google to use Gemini to power new AI features coming to iOS 18. Earlier this year, 9to5Mac also reported that Apple had been running internal tests with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Now a Bloomberg report claims that Apple has resumed negotiations with OpenAI for a potential partnership.

Pretty much every tech company has been investing in generative AI for the past two years, and Apple is rumored to finally bring new AI-based tools to iPhone users soon with iOS 18. However, the costs of operating such tools are quite high, and Meta has just confirmed that it will take years for the company to make money from AI.

People have been complaining about Siri for years now, arguing that it’s fallen behind the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant. With clear evidence that 2024 is going to see dramatic improvements in Apple’s AI features, will iOS 18 Siri finally turn things around?

I’m very much hoping the answer is yes, and think there are three clues which provide some reason for optimism …

An Apple research paper describes how the company has been developing Ferret-UI, a generative AI system specifically designed to be able to make sense of app screens.

The paper is somewhat vague about the potential applications of this – likely deliberately so – but the most exciting possibility would be to power a much more advanced Siri …

Siri launched with the iPhone 4S in October 2011, replacing Voice Control with a more capable virtual assistant. A dozen years later, Siri has evolved into the primary way we interact with our Apple products.

Wait, no, I’m being told Siri sounds more natural but the core technology is roughly the same. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence now means generative AI and chat bots are based on large language models.

Siri and the rest of iOS 18 will join the AI revolution in June, ending our long national nightmare of Siri being somewhere between hot garbage and kinda useful sometimes. At least that’s what’s being reported, but we don’t really have a great sense of what to expect yet.

iOS 17.4 introduces the ability to assign languages to Siri specifically for when it reads your messages to you. Languages can be different than the assigned language used for Siri for all other tasks. This is useful for when you primarily use Siri in one language, but you chat with people using other languages.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has a message for Wall Street. He believes Apple “break new ground” on generative AI this year. Cook’s latest AI hype comments came today during Apple’s annual shareholders meeting.

A next generation Siri version is set to be powered by a generative AI chatbot, with analysts expecting it to be launched with iOS 18, and announced at this year’s WWDC.

While Apple has been criticized for the way that Siri has lagged behind, a new report says that this is because the company is aiming to be far more ambitious than existing generative AI systems …

Via Bloomberg, Apple is closing an office in San Diego, which housed part of the Data Operations Annotations group, which evaluates Siri customer responses and helps improve accuracy of the system, among other duties.

The reorganization impacts 121 jobs in San Diego. Apple has offered all affected employees jobs at its Austin, Texas, offices if they are willing to relocate.

A leaker with a mixed track-record says that Apple will use this year’s WWDC to announce some new Siri generative AI capabilities.

The post is vague, stating only that it will “add more personalization and natural conversations to Siri,” with just a few other elements …

What’s “one perk of fame,” according to Barbra Streisand? Phoning up the CEO of Apple when Siri doesn’t pronounce your name correctly.

Since the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, many people have wondered when Apple will introduce its own generative AI. Rumors suggest that this could happen next year. Until then, Apple CEO Tim Cook has been talking a lot about AI in recent months and has now reinforced that Apple is investing in generative AI.

The vast majority of my smart home control comprises asking Siri to activate a scene – or having one automatically triggered by a time or event. For example, when going to bed, a single command switches on low lighting in the bedroom while switching off all other lights in the home.

Most of these scenes are created from scratch, thinking about exactly what I want to happen in particular circumstances – but there’s another approach I’d like to be able to take …

Ace reporter Wayne Ma has a new scoop about a feature likely coming to Siri in iOS 18. The upcoming feature is revealed in a new report that details Apple’s ongoing efforts to invest in conversational AI.

In what appears to be a new feature in the latest iOS beta, Siri explains Conversation Awareness the first time it is activated.

Without the message, people might be confused as to why the volume has suddenly reduced itself on their Airpods Pro 2 …