During its keynote for the latest Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple took some time on stage to talk about some key changes coming to Siri, the digital personal assistant that links so many of Apple’s different services.
iOS 13 will facilitate a few major improvements to Siri. That includes a better, more natural voice when speaking, and also gaining a few more skills thanks to boosted artificial intelligence. Here’s a quick overview of what to expect from Siri later this year.
Improved Speech & New Skills
Right now, Siri’s general speech is just fine. However, things can get a bit broken when Siri has to deal with a long string of text, especially when names are thrown in for good measure. This can lead to some hilarious results, but Apple has decided that iOS 13 is the right software release to improve things quite a bit.
Apple showed off the more natural, improved Siri speech while on stage, and has showcased the demo on its official page, too. Apple says Siri will sound more natural now thanks to neural text-to-speech (TTS). Siri’s voice is now entirely generated by software, which makes it possible for the strung-together words to sound far more natural than the previous implementation.
Apple is also boosting Siri’s intelligence, too. As a result, the digital assistant has some new skills associated with awareness and context. In iOS 13, Siri will be able to offer personalized suggestions based on a variety of factors, including new suggestions for podcasts to listen to in Apple Podcasts. Suggestions will also crop up for Safari and Maps as well. Have an event or a reminder in a third-party app? Siri can help with that, too.
SiriKit, Radio, And A New Language
A couple of additional skills Siri is learning relate to audio. The first is additional support for third-party streaming audio apps, like Spotify, Pandora, podcast apps, and audiobook apps. With this new feature, iOS 13 users can ask Siri to play music from one of these third-party apps, broadening Siri’s usability beyond Apple’s first-party apps like Apple Music or Apple Podcasts.
In addition to that, Siri also supports the ability to tune into a radio station if the user asks.
Apple has also confirmed that Siri now has a new Indian English voice.
No More Jokes At Siri’s Expense?
If you’ve used Siri long enough to find yourself listening to a long string of content, then you know that the digital assistant can get hung up pretty easily by the required syllables. Of course, this can also happen with individual words, too, especially if you listen to Siri while navigating and come across some unique road names. It can be frustrating, but also pretty comical sometimes.
iOS 13 may make it harder to crack a joke at Siri’s expense, but that’s a good thing. The more natural language is far superior to what Apple has right now, and it should make for a far improved experience.
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