Michael Grothaus 22/05/2018 - 3:01pm

The voice assistant is expected to get a big iOS 12 update.

Siri is the iPhone’s, Apple TV’s, and Mac’s digital assistant. While one of the first modern-day digital assistants available, Siri has long fallen behind other digital assistants including the likes of Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa.

The good news is Siri might be set to get a big overhaul in iOS 12, which may first be previewed in just a few weeks at WWDC in June. Ironically, we know this thanks to Siri herself.

Several people have discovered that if you ask Siri to tell you about WWDC, she’ll now reply with several revealing answers including:

  • "I don't want to brag, but I'm getting a lot smarter. t must be all that late night studying I've been doing.”
  • "La, la, la, Siri is getting a brand new voice.”
  • "I'm gonna have a shiny new home. Well, not really shiny, more meshy and matte.”

The last tip no doubt refers to a new, most likely cheaper, version of the HomePod. But it’s the first two responses that should have Siri fans really excited: Siri may be getting better sounding AND much smarter.

But what else can Apple do to make Siri better? Here are our tips:

Detect Multiple Voices

When Siri was only on the iPhone it didn’t really matter that Siri couldn’t detect multiple voices. But now that Siri has made the jump to the HomePod–a device that is likely used by many people in the same house–it would be nice if the assistant could distinguish between who is speaking.

This would allow Siri to send messages from specific accounts or access the music libraries of different people in the house.

Celebrity Voices

While we want Siri to be able to detect multiple voices–and we’re happy she’s getting new voices herself–we’d love to see the option to have celebrity voices on Siri. Think Paul Bettany's voice ala JARVIS from Iron Man. Or Yoda…

Support For Deep Contextual Conversations

Right now Siri pretty much can only follow one explicit command at a time. Other digital assistants are moving into contextual conversations, however. This is where the assistant can follow a series of spoken commands and link them together to distinguish what you want.

For example, it would be great if you could say things like “Siri, turn on my living room lights. Wait, never mind. I mean, turn on my office lights and then order me my favorite pizza from Dominos and play my favorites playlist.”

Right now, Siri would just think you were speaking gibberish if you attempted to communicate with her using the phrase above.”

Workflow Support

Apple recently acquired the popular Workflow app, which allows users to create workflows similar to the way Alexa can handle skills. Right now Siri doesn’t have any kind of general workflow handling (which would be great, for example, for smart home control). So here’s hoping Apple is going to integrate Workflow directly into Siri.

Give Siri More Control Of Your Devices

Finally, we’d also love for Apple to give more control over our devices to Siri. How great would it be to say from across the room, “Hey Siri, lock my Mac.” Or “Shut down my Mac.” Or how about “Hey Siri, enable Bluetooth.” Or, “Siri, begin recording this conversation”.

Such commands would make Siri AMAZING. Please Siri, make it so.