Congratulations to iPhone users as Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, is poised to be a cornerstone of the company’s new AI strategy, which could be revealed during the keynote session at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. Previously, reports indicated that Siri would focus on enhancing its intelligence and efficiency in handling complex tasks. Now, a new report has detailed the AI capabilities that Siri might gain, including the ability to control various native Apple apps through verbal commands.
Enhanced AI Capabilities for Siri
According to AppleInsider, one of Apple’s primary goals is to improve Siri’s ability to understand natural language commands. Sources familiar with Apple’s AI initiatives indicate that Siri is being trained to comprehend more contextual and indirect prompts. For example, instead of explicitly requesting, “show pictures of my dog,” users could say, “I’m feeling nostalgic” or “I want to make a blog,” prompting Siri to display relevant photos and ask for further instructions.
This contextual understanding is just one part of the extensive AI features reportedly planned. Siri is also expected to perform tasks within numerous Apple apps, including Books, Calendar, Camera, Contacts, Files, Freeform, Generative Playground (internal), Keynote, Mail, Magnifier, News, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Safari, Stocks, System Settings, and Voice Memos.
Siri’s AI Features in Apple Books
In the Books app, Siri will reportedly gain new capabilities, such as opening specific books or sections, resuming the last read book, changing themes, flipping pages, and pausing audiobooks, all through voice commands. Users could also search for specific categories in the bookstore and display finished books, downloaded books, and PDF documents.
Siri’s AI Features in Camera and Mail Apps
The Camera app is expected to benefit from Siri’s new AI skills, potentially allowing the assistant to change photography modes, set timers, and switch between front and rear cameras. However, it remains unclear if Siri will also be able to take photos on command, which could be useful for group shots.
In the Mail app, Siri might receive a Smart Replies feature for quick email responses. Additionally, the assistant could schedule email replies, forward emails, undo sends, save and delete drafts, block senders, mark emails as junk, unsubscribe from newsletters, summarize email threads, and mute or delete emails.
Siri’s AI Features in Keynote and Photos Apps
For Keynote, Siri is expected to streamline presentation tasks. Users could add images, galleries, audio, video, text boxes, or comments to slides via voice commands. Siri might also show specific slides, apply themes, create slides, manage presentations, and adjust text formatting.
In the Photos app, Siri is anticipated to offer features such as opening photos of specific people or pets, searching for objects, adding photos to albums, duplicating, rotating, moving, and hiding photos, creating new memories, applying filters, and opening photos and videos in editing mode.
Additional Potential Siri Features
Further reports suggest that Siri could transcribe notes in the Notes app, set reminders in the Reminders app, and read and summarize articles in the Safari browser. These enhancements have yet to be confirmed by Apple, and the official details will be unveiled at WWDC 2024.