Check out Apple’s big overhaul of Siri
USA TODAY’s Jennifer Jolly attended a keynote event where Apple announced enhancements to its virtual assistant.
I’ve been talking to Siri like a slightly confused intern for more years than I’d like to admit. You ask your husband to send you an email. Provides web search. You say, “Call Geneva.” I’ll call Doug. Like many people, I decided somewhere along the way that Siri and I were always going to hate each other a little bit.
So when Apple invited me into a room at Apple Park on Monday, June 8, to try out the all-new Siri AI firsthand, I was cautiously optimistic. I left the store with high hopes, but there was one big caveat.
The first thing you notice is that it’s just there. There’s no need to download a new app or set up an account. As always, you can summon it with the side button “Hey Siri” or enter the conversation directly with a new swipe down from the top of the screen.
That sounds small. it’s not. Apple brought fully functional AI to hundreds of millions of people who have never opened ChatGPT. Siri doesn’t have to be the smartest assistant on the planet to win them over. It just needs to be an assistant that is already in their hands.
What it can do when it works is the part I’m excited about. In a demo that Apple ran for me, someone asked, “What podcast did your sister recommend?” Siri pulled the answer from an old message thread. No scrolling or searching required. Another user asked to add the items listed in a friend’s camping email to a packing list and be reminded to pack when they get home. Two requests, one sentence completed. Get it from your email and set location-based reminders all at once.
Just to be clear, these were Apple demos, on Apple phones, with data pre-loaded by Apple. There were no sisters, no actual camping trips. Only carefully selected scenarios designed to show Siri at her best. It’s not nothing, but it’s not the same as you or I would use it in real life. The real test will come when it goes on sale this fall.
Still, the idea strikes a chord. Because that’s exactly what I struggle with every day. Somewhere you must have seen a recommended restaurant, a confirmation number, a link that your friend swore he wanted. text? Is it email? Instagram? Having Siri access everything and help you find what you need could save you hours a week. The new visual smarts are also a nice bonus. Point your camera at your dinner bill to split the check, or point it at your backpack and ask if it passes as carry-on baggage.
Alongside this, Apple’s pitch is privacy, and it’s a smart one. For Siri to be useful, it needs to search for the most personal things, like messages, emails, and photos. Apple says it will process what can be properly processed on the user’s device, and that anything sent to the cloud will only be used to respond to the request and then deleted. Apple can’t see it, and neither can Google. (Google’s Gemini model helps power all of this, which in itself is a remarkable admission from a company that typically insists on building everything in-house.) This promise is paying off in a lot of ways. The more your assistant knows about you, the more important it becomes that the company behind it keeps its promises.
This is my honest hesitation. Like many people, I live with Apple hardware, but I also spend my days using third-party apps like Gmail, WhatsApp, and Google Photos. Siri can read what’s on the screen on any screen, but that’s only superficial. Until these apps can actually take advantage of Siri, I have a huge blind spot in my actual digital life. And in the demo, I noticed that there was a beat between the question and the answer, sometimes an uncomfortable beat. Maybe it’s a beta version. They will need to fill in the gaps before this information reaches everyone this fall. Otherwise, people will be the first to complain.
So what I’m saying to you is, “Get excited, but proceed with caution.” Apple previously promised a smarter Siri and left us waiting (for two years, which in the tech world is the equivalent of a lifetime). The demo is the easy part. The real test is whether it works in my messy inbox, messy camera roll, and my real life. Only when I need it to work, on a very busy Tuesday.
I can’t wait to find out. You won’t believe it until you see it on your phone.
Jennifer Jolie is an Emmy Award-winning consumer technology columnist and on-air contributor to “The Today Show.” The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her at Techish.com or @JennJolly on Instagram.
