Latest iOS 17 Beta Adds Support for Bilingual Siri Queries Mixing English With Hindi and Other Indic Languages

Apple yesterday released its first set of public betas for iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, and these versions add new features for Indian users across platforms, including support for bilingual queries to Siri.

iOS 17 Public Beta Thumb 3
According to TechCrunch, users will be able to ask queries to ‌Siri‌ by mixing English with select Indic languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada, and Marathi.

India-based users often speak a mix of languages in daily conversations, so the ability to mix English with Hindi and other Indic languages when querying ‌Siri‌ will be broadly welcomed.

TechCrunch also highlights some other improvements for Indian users, including:

  • Transliteration support on iOS for Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. With this expansion, Apple now supports 10 indic languages.
  • Users can sign into Apple ID using their phone number instead of an email ID on ‌iOS 17‌, ‌iPadOS 17‌, and ‌macOS Sonoma‌.
  • A new built-in Punjabi dictionary to get definition of words and phrases across platforms.
  • Users will be able to see up to 2,000 calls in the call history section including Facetime and WhatsApp calls.
  • Filtering messages by known and unknown senders on iPad.

Public beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program can download the ‌iOS 17‌, ‌iPadOS 17‌, and ‌macOS Sonoma‌ updates now. Developers have had three betas so far, and the first public betas offer the same content as the third developer betas.

Apple is expected to release final stable versions of ‌iOS 17‌, ‌iPadOS 17‌, and ‌macOS Sonoma‌ later in the fall.

Related Roundups: iOS 17, iPadOS 17
Tag: India
Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

Top Rated Comments

contacos Avatar
11 weeks ago
The F, why is this only available for such "unique" languages. I have been complaining about this for YEARS. My iPhone is set to German but when I receive messages in Spanish or English, it becomes just gibberish. It's been working with the keyword forever but somehow Apple never made Siri smart enough to do the same.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nostaws Avatar
11 weeks ago
Can I mix other languages? Like English and Spanish - used on both sides of the border.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Wildkraut Avatar
11 weeks ago

The F, why is this only available for such "unique" languages. I have been complaining about this for YEARS. My iPhone is set to German but when I receive messages in Spanish or English, it becomes just gibberish. It's been working with the keyword forever but somehow Apple never made Siri smart enough to do the same.
Same here… my iPhone is set to English, but i communicate in English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian. Apple’s multi-language support is catastrophic.

Eg. Siri can’t read in different languages. Apple navigation read german road names like a moron. The keyboard auto-correction and suggestions works only with two languages, and is not very reliable, too.


Apple is 10 years behind Google at this.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Populus Avatar
11 weeks ago
I would be super cool to have this feature with more combination of languages, such as English and Spanish, or English and German.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Wildkraut Avatar
11 weeks ago
Many countries use multiple languages to communicate, this is nothing new. Apple is living in a cave. Google knows it better, it supports multilingual requests, text reading and message replies.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Steven.Knight Avatar
11 weeks ago
As many others, I’d like to use my iPhone with multiple languages, but I can’t. Since I live in Italy, I had to set it up in Italian, otherwise maps app would read Italian roads with English pronunciation, which is rubbish. Besides, I’ve got an Apple Music subscription and Siri just can’t understand what I’m saying, for it expects me to have a Super Mario’s style pronounce… and that’s ridiculous.. my pronunciation is more like Luigi’s!
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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