Siri to lose control over some third-party apps in iOS 15

This week, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 15 Public Beta 4 so that the software can still be tested and kinks worked out before the release of the final versions in September. What beta testers have recently discovered is that Siri is going to lose some of her abilities once the next major build of iOS and iPadOS are dropped.

On Apple's Developer Support page, the firm states that "Starting with the customer release of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8 this fall, some SiriKit intent domains will be deprecated and will no longer be supported in all new and existing OS releases. If a user makes a request that leverages one of these APIs after it's been removed, Siri will reply that it can't support the request."

SiriKit is a set of developer tools that allows apps to work with Apple's voice assistant and 22 domains will lose support. For example, Siri will no longer help you book a ride with ride-sharing apps. You also won't be able to cancel a ride, get the status of a ride, and more. CarPlay users will no longer be able to adjust climate or seat settings by asking Siri to make a change.

In iOS 15, Siri will no longer support third-party to-do apps, nor will users be able to have the voice assistant help them pay bills using third-party apps. In the same vein, users will no longer be able to transfer money within a specific third-party app. Apple is asking developers to make the appropriate changes to any marketing material that promotes support from Siri to handle certain tasks that the latter will no longer support in iOS 15.

As if Apple needs another reason to have anti-competitive charges thrown in its face, the deprecation of SiriKit intent domains for third-party apps is bound to help Apple's first-party apps since those will not lose Siri support. With lawmakers probing tech firms like Apple and Google, this surely seems like the wrong time for Apple to be doing this especially with some third-party apps no longer able to handle Siri-directed tasks that Apple's own apps will still be allowed to handle.

Some see Apple making this move to force users and developers to use Shortcuts. Doing this would still allow a user to direct that certain tasks be handled through a third-party app via Siri as long as the special Shortcuts phrase is spoken to Siri.