The new iOS 17 operating system should be here within a couple of weeks, but iPhone users will have to wait until next year for an update to one of the major tenets of the software.
According to a report from The Information, iOS 18 will bring about a series of huge upgrades to the Siri voice assistant.
The report says the improvements on deck will make Siri much smarter, giving the assistant the ability to automate multi-step tasks via a single voice command.
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One of the more complex example offered in the report is the ability to take five photos, convert them to an animated GIF image and then send that GIF to a friend.
Sounds pretty fancy, huh?
According to the report, it would make Siri voice commands comparable to the functionality in the Shortcuts app, which enables users to program certain actions to happen in an automated fashion. For example, it is currently possible to access the image-to-GIF tool via Shortcuts.
The report focuses on Apple expanding its spending to millions of dollars a day to match rivals in the AI space. Apple has been criticised for falling behind the likes of OpenAI, whose ChatGPT client is powering Microsoft’s expansion, while Google’s own Bard is also starting to come into its own. According to some reports, the criticism even stretches to within Apple’s own ranks.
Much of that criticism isn’t centred around Apple’s recent actions but around the way the assistant was designed in the first place.
According to a New York Times report earlier this year, part of Apple’s issues with shifting its existing Siri model to a more interactive solution is down to the way the assistant’s word database was originally compiled, which a source described as “one big snowball”. That meant there was no “clear path” to pivot Siri to a ChatGPT like tool.
Apple is certainly thought to be working on its answer to ChatGPT, but the forthcoming iOS 17 doesn’t have much to offer in that regard. Apple is dropping the “Hey” requirement from “Hey Siri” commands though.
