Foreign media: Eight major Siri improvements we expect to see in iOS 12

Previously, Apple has officially announced that it will hold the WWDC 2018 conference in San Jose, California from 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on June 5 to June 9, where Apple will launch iOS 12, macOS 10.14, watchOS 5 and tvOS 12.

According to the previous major iOS version updates, Siri has always been a focus of the update. So what kind of improvements will Apple bring to Siri this year? Foreign media has summarized 8 points worth looking forward to for us.

Find phone function

Apple has introduced a number of ways to find the location of an iPhone, either using the ping feature on an Apple Watch or using the Find My iPhone app on the web or on another iOS device.

However, as Siri is our intelligent voice assistant, we hope that we can tell where our phone is by just shouting “Hey Siri”, for example, by making a more iconic sound.

Second, you can use HomePod or Apple TV, ask the HomePod where it is, and if it's in the same home, you can ping it a series of times until it's found.

Better semantic understanding

Siri is good for simple tasks, but falls apart when things get complicated. We want to be able to ask Siri a series of commands at once. This would be useful in a variety of areas, especially when dealing with HomeKit.

Ask Siri to "turn on the kitchen lights, set them to 50 percent, and make them a warm white," and she won't be able to track it. Likewise, if asked a phrase like "Search the App Store for IT Home," Siri will respond with something.

Of course, when IT Home tried to ask "Search IT Home in the App Store", Siri in iOS 11.3 was smart enough to handle this phrase, and we hope that Siri can understand more complex semantics.

Contextual semantic understanding

Count this as a blanket statement about improving Siri overall. There are too many errors and inconsistencies in the responses she provides.

Especially when there are multiple related issues involved. The best (and worst) example of this is what we saw on Twitter:

“Hey Siri, what’s this song?”

*Siri correctly answers Nomad's Abhi's "Someone to love"*

Hey Siri, playing guitar on this song?

*Siri told me that band members from Jefferson Airplane played an unrelated song from 40 years ago by the same name called "Somebody to Love."*"

This can be frustrating and can easily turn users away from using Siri.

Personal identification

One thing we heard a lot before HomePod launched was requests for multi-user support.

On an Apple TV or HomePod, it would be extremely beneficial if a user asked Siri to check their calendar or read their email and for Siri to know who was asking and provide the correct answer.

This also works with Apple Music. If someone asks Siri to play their favorites on HomePod, she can tap into that specific user's favorite tracks. This way Siri can provide personalized recommendations for everyone in the home.

Other smart speakers can already do this, so why can't Siri?

Open to developers

Apple's list of apps that can take advantage of Siri is growing all the time, but adding one or two categories of apps isn't going to cut it at all. More apps need to be able to interface with the digital assistant.

Alexa is the shining example. We can use Alexa to feed our pets, learn fun facts, start our cars, order pizza, and more. It's not even close.

This might have been more acceptable when Siri was limited to the iPhone or Apple Watch, but on Apple TV and HomePod, those limitations have begun to hinder Siri.

Alexa has installable "skills" you can browse, similar to apps for iMessage. There are thousands of them, including games like "Harry Potter Quiz," "Jeopardy," and many more. Admittedly, a lot of the skills are garbage, but there are some really impressive choices.

Other Streaming Services

The HomePod can play streaming music from Apple Music, but not any other services. Yes, you can use AirPlay from other devices to play Spotify and other apps, but it's not ideal.

To truly compete with other smart speakers, Siri and HomePod will need to support other streaming services and audio apps.

Turn on the flashlight

Siri can currently change a lot of different settings on your phone, such as disabling Bluetooth, but it doesn't have the ability to turn the flashlight on or off.

This seems like a strange limitation to not be able to trigger some settings like the flashlight. For consistency’s sake, Siri should be able to control this as well.

HomeKit support on Mac

HomeKit support isn’t entirely Siri’s responsibility, but it’s something we’ve wanted for a while. When Siri debuted on the Mac, HomeKit support was surprisingly absent, but recent buzz suggests that the tide may be changing.

A more open Siri

An important balance for Apple is between adding extra functionality to Siri while still maintaining privacy. This is probably one of the biggest differences between Siri and any other intelligent assistant.

Apple uses advanced techniques like differential privacy to keep your data safe, but at some point, the feature gap between Siri and the competition becomes too much to bear. We're not suggesting that Apple abandon its privacy efforts, but find a way to maintain privacy while adding some extra flagship features.