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Make Siri great again! Apple's smart assistant gets updated, gains on-device learning, instant translation and more

By Plamen Dimitrov

Jun 05, 2017, 3:25 PM

Make Siri great again! Apple's smart assistant gets updated, gains on-device learning, instant translation and more

Apple's smart assistant is about to get a lot smarter. A bunch of important updates was just announced for Siri, which indicates that Cupertino has made some serious efforts to catch up to the likes of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Some of the most intriguing augmentations that you can expect on Siri when iOS 11 goes live include on-device learning that will help out with recommendations. For example, Siri will learn as you browse through Safari and then will offer certain words or topics as suggestions for Apple's QuickType keyboard. These will be available when you type in Mail, Messages, and other apps. Furthermore, Siri will also offer multiple results whenever you make a query.

Another major improvement includes a Translate service which is being beta tested on the smart assistant. Voice translations will be offered from English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, with more languages expected in the future.

There are also improvements to Siri's voice - both the male and female voices will sound more natural, adjusting things like intonation, pitch, emphasis, and tempo while speaking. The visual interface is also getting overhauled, while it was also announced that the service will be synced on all of Apple's smart devices.

Finally, Siri will also be present on Apple's new smart home speaker - the HomePod. There, it will act as a musicologist, which indicates increased contextual understatement.

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Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017 (13 updates)

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