Apple's Voice-Powered Virtual "Assistant" Coming to iOS
Apple will have an extensive voice recognition service in a future version of iOS called 'Assistant', according to a report on 9to5Mac.
It has been rumored that Apple was planning to include voice-related features from its acquisition of personal assistant company Siri, and a partnership with speech-to-text specialists Nuance. Apple, however, didn't mention any such features when it first demonstrated iOS 5 at WWDC in June.
This new "Assistant" feature in iOS 5 is claimed to take voice input along with other user-specific information, such as location and contacts, to provide a powerful service to the user:
We can imagine a user asking their iPhone “Assistant” to setup a movie with one of their friends. The user might say “setup movie with Mark” and based on Mark’s contact info and the user’s location data, will be able to offer tickets to a local theater and send Mark the information.
9to5Mac notes that development of the feature is ongoing and may not be finished in-time for iOS 5, but did find mention of 'Assistant' in buried in the iOS SDK.
"ASSISTANT_ENABLE_WARNING" = "Assistant uses your voice input and other information like your contact names, song names, and location to understand your requests. This data will be sent to Apple to process your request and to improve Apple products and services."
The feature sounds just like what Siri had been working on prior to its acquisition. Their iOS app
Siri Assistant remains available on the App Store for download. Siri focused on a concept called "Virtual Personal Assistants" (VPAs) that would accomplish tasks for the user.
Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs) represent the next generation interaction paradigm for the Internet. In today's paradigm, we follow links on search results. With a VPA, we interact by having a conversation. We tell the assistant what we want to do, and it applies multiple services and information sources to help accomplish our task. Like a real assistant, a VPA is personal; it uses information about an individual's preferences and interaction history to help solve specific tasks, and it gets better with experience.
Siri's implementation used Nuance's voice recognition engine to translate spoken requests to text which would then be processed. Apple has been rumored to be working closely with Nuance to provide the same transcription service to iOS users.
Popular Stories
An iPhone 17 announcement is a dead cert for September 2025 – Apple has already sent out invites for an "Awe dropping" event on Tuesday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The timing follows Apple's trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall.
At the event, Apple is expected to unveil its new-generation iPhone 17, an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17...
Apple today announced its "Awe Dropping" iPhone-centric event, which is set to take place on Tuesday, September 9 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. There are a long list of products that are coming, but we thought we'd pull out five feature highlights to look forward to.
That Super Thin iPhone - Apple's September 9 event will see the unveiling of the first redesigned iPhone we've had in years, ...
Apple's logo for its upcoming September 9 event hints at two rumored iPhone 17 Pro features, including new color options and a vapor chamber cooling system.
Of course, this is all just speculation for fun, as we count down the final days until the event.
New Colors
Last month, Macworld's Filipe Espósito reported that orange and dark blue would be two out of the five color options...
Apple will offer the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max in a new orange color, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman made the claim in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, adding that the new iPhone 17 Air – replacing the iPhone 16 Plus – will come in a new light blue color.
We've heard multiple rumors about a new iPhone 17 Pro color being a shade of orange. The ...
Apple's cases for the iPhone 17 lineup will be accompanied by a new Crossbody Strap accessory with a unique magnetic design, according to the leaker known as "Majin Bu."
Apple's Crossbody Strap reportedly features an unusual magnetic design; it likely has a "flexible metal core" that makes it magnetic along its entire length. At the ends, "rings polarized oppositely to the strap close the...
Apple hasn't updated the AirPods Pro since 2022 other than a shift from Lightning to USB-C, and the earbuds are due for a refresh. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will launch AirPods Pro 3 later this year, and apart from new features like heart rate monitoring, we're also expecting a few design changes.
The fourth‑generation AirPods offer useful clues to Apple's design cues for ...
