Report reveals that Siri will never be the same once iOS 18 is released
Siri, as we know her, is never going to be the same once iOS 18 starts rolling out in September. And this Monday Apple will preview the changes it is making to its Virtual Digital Assistant and we are there for it. Hey, it's not like Siri doesn't work but she's like the friend you knew in school who had the intelligence to be anything she wanted to be but never lived up to her potential.
Which iOS apps will Siri be able to work its AI magic with?
AppleInsider was able to discover everything that Siri will be able to do starting in iOS 18. According to the report, the native apps that will get the new Siri features include:
- Books
- Calendar
- Camera
- Contacts
- Files
- Freeform
- Generative Playground (internal)
- Keynote
- Magnifier
- News
- Notes
- Photos
- Reminders
- Safari
- Stocks
- System Settings
- Voice Memos
Inside these apps, Siri will be able to help you toggle switches and you'll be able to make changes to an app using your voice instead of using your fingers. For example, in the Camera app Siri will be able to toggle on video recording, open up a specific photography mode including photo, portrait, video, slow motion, set a timer, and flip from the back camera array to the front-facing camera.
Siri might be ready for its big AI makeover, but we have also been waiting a long time
Inside the Mail app, Siri will not only be able to place your email into categories like Commerce, News, Promotions, Social, Transactions, and Other, but she will also compose an email, un-send an email, reply to all recipients of an email, create smart replies to emails, summarize emails and more. The Smart Replies will be written by Apple's on-device Large Language Model (LLM) although more complex responses will be handled by cloud-based servers.
The Notes app is also benefiting greatly from Siri's AI infusion and it will store audio recordings, transcriptions of said recordings, and even better yet, a summarization of the recording. Apple is also adding Math Notes which will allow the user to add complex math equations and graphs to a note.
With the Photos app, you'll be able to ask Siri to show you photos of certain individuals, pets, places, landmarks, and more. You can also request that Siri rotate a photo, rename an album, make copies, move photos to albums, hide photos with certain people, places, and things from a specific time, add filters to photos, and more.
With Safari, the new AI-powered Siri will deliver summaries of the content on the screen, create and open tabs, and possibly feature "Web Eraser" which will remove text, images, and even ad banners on a website. Remembering which content you selected to erase on other sites, Safari would remove them from other webpages as well. Complaints from media organizations might force Apple to remove this feature before iOS 18 is released.
There will be some upgrades that have nothing to do with AI
Another upgrade not related to AI has to do with a new calculator app for iOS that will, for the first time, work on the iPad. Called Project GreyParrot, it will include a sidebar showing the history of the current calculations and an improved method to convert unit measurements.
The festivities start Monday, June 10th, starting at 10 am PDT/1 pm EDT. I don't know about you, but I've been waiting for Apple to make some changes to Siri for years. Monday should be a very exciting day.
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