Siri has just got a serious upgrade. At WWDC, Apple unveiled proactive Siri in iOS 9, uniting the voice assistant with services including Spotlight, Calendar and Maps.
The ‘proactive’ part is the key: the new Siri won’t just wait for you to ask for something. Instead, it will know when you need to leave for a flight or that you always check your Twitter feed first thing in the morning.
One example from the event was that Siri will now offer up the “now playing” menu on your lock screen when you plug in your headphones.
The new proactive Siri will be available with a simple swipe. It’ll live on the side of your home screen and keep track of your most frequent app launches and searches, as well as serving up relevant info from apps, maps and contacts.
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The new feature will be built into iOS 9 and comes with a search API so third-party developers can hook their apps into Siri. Craig Federighi demonstrated by grabbing recipe instructions straight from Yummly.
The move is clearly Apple’s answer to Google Now, which mines a lot of personal data to bring you useful information at the right time.
Federighi says iOS 9 doesn’t collect your emails or contacts in the cloud. All of the processing is done “on device and it stays on device, under your control. If we do need to perform a look up on your behalf, it’s anonymous. You are in control.”
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