I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the many Siri enhancements we’ve seen Apple introduce at WWDC.
Siri became a built-in element of iOS way back in October 2011, when Apple announced its inclusion inside iPhone 4S and iOS 5.Apple’s AI has seen numerous improvements since then, so I thought it might be interesting to explore the evolution of Siri at WWDC since launch.
Apple’s big developer conference isn’t just about wowing the crowd with consumer-focused improvements, it’s also about sewing new seeds developers can choose to use to build their own solutions and businesses.
In recent years, Apple has provided developers with new ways to integrate Siri into their products, and there’s no reason it won’t continue to do the same thing. That’s why it’s highly probable we’ll see enhancements to the service at WWDC 2018.
So, what Siri improvements has Apple introduced in Siri since 2011?
You may recall that Siri opened WWDC 2012. Available in iPhones for only a few months, Siri took a few moments to poke fun at Google and Samsung, before admitting its “emotions hadn’t been coded yet”.
Apple then announced a series of iOS 6 improvements in the software, mainly driven by access to new sources of data about sports, restaurants (with Yelp and OpenTable integration), movie information thanks to integration with Rotten Tomatoes database and new capabilities, such as the capacity to post to social media, to read incoming messages and notifications as well as the ability to open apps.
Siri was now available in 15 languages and in hands-free mode. That international flavour extended to local search results, which worked outside of the U. S. for the first time.
Following the 2012 ouster of Scott Forstall, Apple lost little time re-designing Siri’s interface. Beyond that change of image, Apple’s next collection of Siri improvements saw the introduction of a more natural sounding male or female voices.
Siri also gained the ability to transact more system-level actions, such as turning Bluetooth or Wi-Fi on or off and the capacity to interact with more databases in response to search requests. Apple introduced what was then called «iOS in the Car», an extension of Siri Hands-free designed to work with in-car systems.
The introduction of now so familiar “Hey Siri” support was perhaps the biggest Siri-related news at WWDC 2014, matching the “OK Google” feature previously introduced in Google Chrome. This always-listening mode let you use Siri hands-free.
Apple also introduced the capacity to recognize music using Siri and Shazam, the ability to buy music through iTunes and the addition of support for 22 new languages. Siri gained the ability to control HomeKit enabled devices.
While the way Apple has been able to introduce AI-driven proactive intelligence has been hampered by its desire to protect customer privacy, WWDC 2015 saw the company launch its own take on Google Now.
Siri became able to provide contextual advice based on what it learned about what you are doing. This meant it became more capable of automatically doing useful tasks like adding invitations to your calendar or figuring out who new phone numbers might belong to. Siri also began recommending news stories, music and apps. A
nother nice improvement meant a U. S. user could set Siri to speak in Australian English, if they chose. Most importantly, Siri became significantly (40%) faster in listening and responding to instruction and 40 percent more accurate than it had been before, the company claimed. “An industry best,” it said.
Siri announced the dates of WWDC 2016 days before Apple’s official announcement.
As it transpired, the event saw the introduction of what developers had been hoping for since Siri hit the platform – the SiriKit API. This integration was limited to apps for messaging, phone calls, photo search, ride booking, personal payments and workouts, or some in-car apps. (So you could book a ride using your voice and Apple Watch, for example).
Apple also announced use of differential privacy, enabling Siri to analyse large quantities of customer data without eroding user privacy in any way – this will prove a seminal technology for the future of machine learning on Apple’s platforms.
The assistant also gained new skills, including intelligent scheduling, integration with the QuickType keyboard and the ability to react to your text conversations and make useful suggestions of what you wanted to write yet. Siri also got became much better at searching through your Photos. Apple also announced Siri support in macOS, added YouTube search to Siri on Apple TV and widened HomeKit support.
Eagle-eyed Apple watchers noted the company began increasing Siri-related hiring at the end of 2016.
Siri-related recruitment noticeably increased from the end of 2017 as the company put machine learning more deeply inside its products .
This followed the 2017 introduction of big improvements to the proactive features introduced in 2015. On-device learning became a core component, and contextual analysis recommendations were also improved.
Developers got support for more domains (such as to-do lists, notes, payments) in SiriKit, while Apple also introduced CoreML, enabling technology developers use in order to develop and deploy smarter machine learning experiences.
Apple revealed that Siri was being used by over 375 million devices each month in more countries and languages than any other voice assistant. Capitalizing on this international reach, the company introduced the capacity to use Siri to translate from English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Siri’s voices became even more naturalistic in iOS 11 and voice recognition more accurate.
The Siri-controlled HomePod speaker system was introduced at WWDC, though it didn’t actually ship until the following year, when the iOS 11.2.5 update introduced deeper music understanding, Apple said .
The year that began with the introduction of Business Chat was punctuated with the addition of new Siri jokes .
It will inevitably see Apple widen and improve use of machine learning intelligence across its products, particularly in light of its hiring of Google’s former search and AI unit chief, John Giannandrea .
