Siri is telling people it's getting a major update at WWDC
Siri's getting a makeover -- at least that's what the Apple digital assistant strongly hinted at with its responses about the upcoming Apple developer conference.
Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC, is next month and if you ask the voice assistant (I refuse to call an AI a gendered pronoun) what to expect, it hints at a software update and new default voice -- and what sounds like a new HomePod speaker. The ApplePost appears to have first discovered Siri giving away conference information when asked.
Siri has fallen behind Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant in terms of capability, so this may be the much-needed improvement to the voice-enabled assistant that everyone's been asking for. Siri often struggles with understanding commands, and having a natural conversation with the AI is not very intuitive due to its limitations.
It also sounds like Siri's voice will change -- possibly from its default female-sounding tenor to a typically male one. Earlier this month Google introduced new voices for its Assistant, including the male voice of singer John Legend. Alexa now has male-sounding assistant options, even if the default voice (and name) is distinctly female. So is it Siri's turn for a male makeover? iOS already has several male options in different dialects and languages, but this could be a bold default change coming up.
We reached out to Apple to confirm what Siri told us. We'll update this post if and when we hear back.
UPDATE: May 23, 2018, 12:39 p.m. PDT It turns out those hints about Siri were from last year's conference.
Apple has since updated its digital assistant and it no longer makes elusive comments about the upcoming WWDC. Instead it gives some basic info about the event.
So it's back to guessing what Apple has in store for Siri, if anything.
Topics Apple Artificial Intelligence Siri WWDC
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
