We've always known that Apple Watch will have Siri integration, but some new developments were revealed at Today's Apple Watch event. While on stage, Kevin Lynch demonstrated Hey Siri functionality, which allows you to invoke Siri by simply raising your wrist and using only your voice.
Apple today seeded new iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3 betas to its registered developers and included in the former are more than half a dozen new Siri languages, 9to5Mac said.
When iOS 8.3 is released for public consumption this March, owners of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices will be permitted to converse with the voice assistant in Danish, Dutch, English for India, Russian, Swedish, Thai and Turkish.
Improved Siri voice is reportedly among the under-the-hood improvements in Apple's upcoming iOS 8.3 software update. Though a better-sounding Siri may not always be apparent to an untrained ear, Apple should be credited for consistently improving the voice assistant's speech synthesis capabilities.
Quick comparison of today's more natural-sounding Siri versus the original Siri from 2011 gives you a good indication of Apple's advances in this area.
And now with iOS 8.3 in tow, Apple's bound to boost Siri's speech synthesis further. Listen to the new and improved Siri voice in iOS 8.3 relative to iOS 8.1.1 and let us know what you think.
Developer Philip Tennen showed off a new in-progress jailbreak tweak called Sireader that allows Siri to read RSS feeds. The tweak, which is in the early stages of development as a result of a $1,000 bounty on Reddit, looks extremely promising for those of us that peruse RSS on a daily basis. Imagine driving in the car and having Siri read the latest stories from your favorite news feed. If Tennen's jailbreak tweak sees the light of day, this will be a future reality for jailbreakers.
iOS 8 has added more than two dozen new languages to Siri, but Apple isn't standing still. As first noted by Czech blog LetemSvetemApplem [Google Translate], the voice activated personal assistant feature for the iPhone and iPad could soon start parsing queries in Polish, Czech and Slovak.
The publication has made the conclusion after uncovering a series of text strings within the ‘Localizable.strings’ file in iOS 8.1.2.
For those wondering, the file contains translated content for Siri responses concerning stuff like restaurants, sports information and more.
Folks looking to take advantage of the onslaught of HomeKit products being introduced at CES this year will need to make sure they have an Apple TV. The Verge is reporting that many of the just-announced HomeKit accessories require the set-top box for select features.
More specifically, the outlet says that new smart home devices from iHome, GridConnect, Chamberlain, Elgato and others require users to have a third-gen Apple TV (running software 7.0 or later) on their network in order to take advantage of Siri remote control capabilities.
Do you find yourself using the same Siri commands over and over? I know I do. I always use Siri to tell me the time, and I always use Siri to set alarms. My Siri usage is very limited, so a jailbreak tweak that lets you instantly invoke Siri with a canned command seems right up my alley. Enter QuickSiri, a brand new Cydia release that makes it ridiculously easy to get a fast response from Siri via a canned inquiry.
Debuting at CES 2015 as the world's first HomeKit-certified products on the market, a smart power switch from an accessory maker called iDevices makes it easy to turn on anything in your home using your voice, no hub required.
Marketed as the Switch, this smart power switch uses voice capabilities of Siri to help manage your home from wherever you are.
Siri's built-in Shazam song recognition feature is a handy way to quickly identify songs that are playing around you. What's this song, Siri? is a new Activator add-on that takes this song recognition feature, and makes it directly accessible by means of an Activator gesture.
Friday, Windows giant Microsoft published a new Apple-bashing ad on its YouTube channel.
The 30-second television commercial shows off the latest version of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like personal assistant, running on the Lumia 830 and interacting with a bunch of built-in applications.
Cortana amusingly brags to Siri about being able to perform functions Apple's personal assistant can't, like alert users to leave early for an appointment using traffic alerts, remind them of things based on who calls or texts and more.
I'm not really sure what to think about Amazon's crazy connected speaker with built-in personal digital assistant. What I do know is that the Echo could be a close approximation of what a next-generation Apple TV with built-in Siri might be like. Taking another swing at hardware, the Echo is well designed: it sports both sexy looks and the smarts.
It's also got a few cool tricks up its sleeve to dazzle unsuspecting users. In a nutshell, the Echo will talk to you, play music, read your news headlines, check the weather, find facts online — and also sell you things — for $199.
And the good times keep rolling. A new jailbreak tweak has popped up on the Cydia Store from well-known developer Hamza Sood. The tweak, entitled UntetheredHeySiri, lets you use Siri hands-free without needing to be connected to power.
It's an obvious want for those of us who jailbreak, and Sood quickly addressed the issue. In fact, it's the way that he implemented the tweak that impresses me most. Head inside and watch our hands-on video to see what I mean.