Apple makes Siri smarter, unveils software upgrades

Apple is making Siri smarter as part of updates that also promise improvements to Maps, Music and Photos.

Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address at the developers conference. Pic: AFP

An overhaul of Siri, Maps and Music were among a huge list of software updates announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The conference is being closely watched, after the company reported its first quarterly revenue decline in 13 years, raising questions about whether its best days are behind it.

In a two-hour keynote session, Apple announced upgrades to Apple’s four software operating systems, with details revealed of iOS10 for iPhone/iPad, the renamed macOS Sierra for MacBook computers, and watchOS 3 and tvOS 3 for Apple Watch and Apple TV.

There were no announcements of new hardware, including no new MacBooks, which had received upgrades at previous developers’ conferences.

As predicted Apple announced that its voice assistant Siri would be available on the Mac and developers could embed Siri voice commands in applications across platforms.

In macOS Apple announced its response to Windows’ popular Hello feature, which lets users log in to their device using face and fingerprint recognition. On a Mac a new auto lock feature lets you log in from another Apple device that is already authenticated such as an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. You tap the device and you’re in. Or you can log in using the fingerprint reader on your phone.

Apple said a universal clipboard would let you copy some information, say, on one phone and then immediately paste it into a document on a Mac. You can share items on a Mac desktop with other Mac desktops or an iPhone.

Users can specify how long documents are retained on a Mac through a new optimised storage feature that will automatically make room for new files by deleting older ones.

And they can make payments with Apple Pay on the web and confirm them using touch ID on a phone.

A picture-in-picture mode lets users reduce the size of a movie to a small window while using other applications.

Apple has implemented a form of intelligent searching on the Mac with Siri where you can specify a document by its attributes. So you could use voice commands to ask Siri to find particular documents and include “just the ones Ken sent me that I tagged as a graph”.

You can ask Siri on the Mac to create and send messages and ask it to find the movies playing tonight.

You can drag Siri results such as images straight into a Pages document, or create a drawing with Apple Pencil on an iPad and wirelessly transfer it also into a Pages document.

The most comprehensive changes are to iOS, the operating system for iPhone and iPad. The new iOS 10 includes more comprehensive use of apps on the lock screen. Apple is giving users the option of more functionality before you sign in. Presumably users choose what features they are prepared to use without authentication.

You can see details of notifications using the 3D touch long press features, such as the full details of an upcoming Uber ride. You can go further and create calendar events in response to notifications, all while still on the lock screen.

A slide to the right gives you access to the calendar, a slide the other way news, your calendar and general notifications. New metrics include being able to see the names of people whose emails you ignore.

Apple’s Craig Federighi introduces new iOS software. Pic: AFP

Siri has been opened just to developers on the iPhone and iPad as well as Mac. On an iPhone Siri will work with chat applications such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Slack and you can phrase your request in a variety of ways. For example, you could tell Siri: “WeChat Nancy I’ll be five minutes late” or “Tell Nancy on WeChat that I’ll be 5 minutes late”.

Using Siri you can send messages and initiate voice calls in cars using Apple CarPlay, Apple said.

Apple has responded to the challenge mounted by Google Photos with features such as object and scene recognition as well as face recognition. Apple Photos will make a highlights reel of your last family trip. You can change the mood of the movie and its length and Apple Photos will recut it.

It will show photos of an event by people present, and under various headings such as location, object type and under categories the app creates.

Apple Maps too has been overhauled, with new features such as being able not only to see restaurants in an area but narrow the section to particular choices such as “seafood restaurants”.

Maps will give you alternative routes if there is heavy traffic on the main route. In driving mode a map will pan in and out to show the current roadway, in what Apple says is an improved user experience.

Integration with other apps means you can find a restaurant, book a reservation with Openable and pick the number of attendees and time without leaving the Maps app.

As expected, Apple Music has been revamped, with a cleaner user interface. You can specify playlists for different occasions such as Monday’s playlist, connect to an artist to access rated playlists, video and their top hits, and. where available, view song lyrics.

Apple talked up the success of its News app, which hosts more than 2000 publications and has 60 million readers. There’s now a “for you” feature with top stories, trends, topic you follow in sport and news, and access to publications such as National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal.

Apple announced a new “Home” application for iPhone, iPad and Mac that will let users control all their home devices such as lights. You can group devices together into categories and invoke a command that affects them all. So when you say “good morning” to Siri, Home could switch on all appliances and lights you specify for the morning.

Apple too is offering voice transcription of incoming voice messages, but whether this works for different carriers and in different countries remains to be clarified.

The company has particularly gone to town revamping the Messages app, which now includes the ability to easily insert all kinds of images in messages, draw text, add a “bubble effect” that emphasises or de-emphasises text in a message, and a way to easily search for and include emojis relevant to what you are writing. You can peel off stickers and add them to photos in Messages and drop all kinds of medals into messages such as even food orders.

There are also changes to the operations for Apple Watch. The most significant feature of watchOS 3 is the speed at which apps now load — around seven times faster than before. You can also include apps of your choice in the dock and arrange their order.

An upgrade to tvOS includes new streaming channels, a single signing for accessing different TV apps, Siri searching by movie topic and an ability to voice search clips on YouTube.

Apple also announced a free iPad app called Swift Playground, which visually teaches children to program in the Swift programming language used by Apple apps.

Mostly developers will get access to the new operating systems now. But there will be Beta versions in around July, with final releases in the Australian spring.

This year’s conference includes more than 5000 people with more than 100 young developers less than 18 years old. The youngest, nine, is Australian.

Earlier, Apple chief executive Tim Cook began the keynote session by denouncing the killing of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub as a “senseless and unconsumable act of terrorism and violence”.

“The Apple community is made up people from all around the world of all different backgrounds and all different points of view,” he told the conference, which observed a period of silence to remember the victims.

Apple CEO Tim Cook leads a moment of silence in tribute to the victims of the Orlando massacre.

* Chris Griffith travelled to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco courtesy of Apple.