Siri is in for a big upgrade with iOS 10. App makers will finally be able to tap into Apple’s voice-powered personal assistant, at least for a select category of apps. If Apple and developers have their way, you’ll soon search your photos, hail cars and send your friends money via Siri. The future looks great!
All that’s a big deal for Siri and a huge deal for AI, but there’s still more work to be done, and not just because the promised integration with third-party apps hasn’t yet appeared in the iOS 10 public beta. Besides expanding Siri’s reach to other apps, Apple can do other things to boost the smarts of its intelligent assistant.
1. Work Among Different Devices
Siri is on all of my devices: phone, tablet — and, with macOS Sierra — my Mac. But the virtual assistant remains limited to the device it’s on. Siri should be able to use iCloud to act as one assistant for all of my devices. It would be extremely useful if I could ask my iPhone to play music on my Mac, get someone’s contact information to show up on an Apple TV or use an Apple Watch as a remote control for an Apple TV. Google Now and Cortana don’t do this yet, so it would give Apple a huge edge over rival AI-powered assistants.
MORE: Siri vs. Alexa: Why Amazon Won Our 300-Question Showdown
2. Learn My Tastes
The Siri Suggestions screen in iOS 9 has buttons for dinner, bars, shopping and gas, and I wish those suggestions were customizable. I don’t drive in New York City, for example, so I never need to see the icon for gas stations. In the iOS 10 beta, these suggestions are gone, but there is an area for destinations through Apple Maps. Siri should be able to learn what kind of business I like and suggest I go there when I’m somewhere new, as well as offer directions to those new places. I should also be able to customize which categories Siri shows me, so I could prioritize restaurants and bars.
Even on my iPhone, Google Now remains leagues ahead of Apple’s built-in tool for understanding my voice.
3. Create Contacts
It would be great if I could meet someone, tell Siri to add a contact and have that person dictate his or her phone number and email address. Unfortunately, Siri can’t add contacts, not even in the iOS 10 beta. Instead, you have to pull out your phone and enter the information the old-fashioned way. There should be a quick and painless way for me to ask Siri to add a number or email address, using Touch ID to verify my identity and then speaking the information.
4. Improve Voice Recognition
Siri needs to understand me every time I ask it a question. Even on my iPhone, Google Now remains leagues ahead of Apple’s built-in tool for understanding my voice. Amazon’s Alexa sets the standard here: We recently compared Siri and Alexa, asking the two voice assistants 300 questions each. Alexa caught 99.9 of what we said; Siri understood just 52 percent.
5. Have a Conversation
Credit: infinityl0ve,web.stagram.com
Siri has some canned reactions to some pithy jokes and Easter eggs, but it’s time to go full chatbot and make Siri very personal to each user. Let Siri learn my favorite foods and suggest them for meals. Have it learn what I think about current events and suggest more stories to read. Let it play games like hangman or tic-tac-toe. If SmarterChild could do it in the 2000s, Siri should be able to do it today, and do it better.
An assistant should never tell you they can’t or won’t find something.
6. Hand Me Off to Human Helpers
An assistant should never tell you it can’t or won’t find something. Facebook’s ‘M’ project mixes AI with people, handing off questions and requests that the computer can’t understand. Siri should follow suit, with an option to hand over your queries to real people to get the job done. If Siri can’t answer my query, like booking a dinner reservation, it shouldn’t tell me it can’t understand or suggest tangentially related web links. Instead, Siri should have people working at Cupertino ready to research and answer questions, including booking a table and sending me a confirmation.
7. Help Me Buy Things
Amazon’s Alexa will buy whatever I need just by asking. Siri needs to get into the commerce game, either by teaming up with Amazon (yeah, right), Jet or another vendor. Instead of using apps, I’d ideally just set a default store with Siri and tell it when I need to buy toilet paper. (Hopefully, I’d give Siri some advance notice.)
Of all of the requests on the list, this one might come the soonest. With Apple specifically letting app makers use Siri for payments in iOS 10, it’s possible that Amazon or other retailers will let you buy by stating what you want to purchase, and from which store.
8. Add Custom Phrases
Some of Siri’s commands are rigid. If you don’t say things the way Siri likes, it won’t understand you. It should let users come up with their own phrases for common commands. Perhaps I’d say, “Give Brian a ring” or “Hit up Brian” instead of “Call Brian.”
This wouldn’t be a departure from what Siri lets you do now. You can already tell Siri someone’s relationship to you, and then ask it to “Call my brother” or “Text my wife.” Further customization in that vein would make Siri a lot more personal.
9. Add Smarts to Alarms
I mainly use Siri to set alarms, particularly for when it’s time to get up in the morning. When Siri wakes me, I wish it would announce the most important information I missed while I was in dreamland, or send me a traffic report for my commute, or tell me what the weather is like, and if it’s a holiday or any of my contacts’ birthdays. And of course, I should be able to tell Siri which information I want during my morning routine.
Sony is promising a similar feature with the Xperia Ear, a phone accessory it showed off at Mobile World Congress this spring. There’s no reason why Apple can’t put its own spin on greeting me with the information I need, tapping into Siri to provide it.
10. Let Me Text Siri
Sometimes I don’t want to talk, but that’s the only way to communicate with Siri. Both the iOS and macOS versions should let you send text messages to Siri, whether it’s a quick web search or finding a contact’s address. This is especially the case on the Mac, where you might be in an office, coffee shop, library or other shared space where you’d feel awkward talking to your computer.
Even with a smartphone, you might be somewhere that’s so loud that Siri can’t understand you. When you need directions, you could always open Maps, but a quick text is often faster than unlocking your phone, opening the app and navigating menus to find the way to your friend’s birthday party.
