Siri gets major upgrade in iOS 18 with generative AI and expanded app interactions

Apple’s highly anticipated WWDC 2024 event is set to unveil major updates to its software lineup, including a substantial improvement to Siri, as detailed in a recent leak and covered by AppleInsider. The upcoming iOS 18 is expected to bring a slew of new features to Apple’s voice assistant, Siri.

According to sources familiar with the developments, Siri will soon be able to interact more with a wide range of iOS applications, including Books, Calendar, Camera, Contacts, Files, Freeform, Keynote, Mail, Magnifier, News, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Safari, Stocks, and Voice Memos.

The main Settings app will also see deeper integration with Siri, which will make it easier to adjust the display brightness, home screens, and the app library, amid rumors of a complete Settings app redesign.

The leak also reveals an expansion of Siri’s abilities to handle a variety of new actions across these apps. Users will be able to ask Siri to open ebooks, set camera timers, manage slide titles, and even unsubscribe from email newsletters. It will be far more straightforward to organize folders, tags, albums, and filters through voice commands in the Notes and Photos apps.

In addition to app interactions, Siri is due to showcase better AI-driven tasks. These include summarizing emails and threads, generating smart replies, sorting emails into categories, transcribing text notes, editing photos, and summarizing both websites and notifications.

Top new Siri iOS 18 features

Below are some of the much-anticipated features of Siri:

• Camera: Siri will now support voice-controlled camera operations. Users can ask Siri to start or stop video recording, open the camera in various modes (such as photo, portrait, or video), begin a shutter timer, and switch between the front and rear cameras. This will make it easier to take selfies from a distance.
• Mail: The Mail app will undergo a revamp, including the ability to automatically sort emails using machine learning—a feature familiar to Gmail users. Siri will be able to compose, send, and schedule emails, mark them as junk, and set reminders to read emails later. It will also offer email summarization and generate “smart replies,” similar to Android’s Smart Reply and Gmail’s Help Me Write.
• Photos: Apple plans to introduce advanced photo editing tools using generative AI, comparable to those on Google’s Pixel devices, such as object removal and replacement in photos and applying AI-based filters. Users will also be able to locate specific photos by people or animals.
• Safari: Apple’s browser will use Siri to generate site summaries, similar to that found in Android’s Gemini. Siri will make it easier to browse online by creating new tab groups or opening new private tabs via voice commands.
• Voice memos: Voice Memos will finally become fully hands-free, so users can interact entirely through Siri. Commands will include creating a new voice recording, starting and stopping recordings, saving them under specific names, and organizing them into designated folders, all without touching the device.

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