Something About Siri

On my way home from work today, I asked Siri on my iPhone to remind me to do something later tonight. It worked, like usual. But then I wondered, “Can Siri take a note?” Seems simple enough. But…

The thing is, I recall that Siri can’t take a note on my Apple Watch. Somehow, Apple Notes doesn’t work on the Watch at all — super weird miss to me. Hopefully that changes this year. Anyways, that’s why I wondered if it even worked on the phone.

So I asked, “Siri, take a note.” 

To my surprise, it worked like you might expect. Siri took my verbal word dictation and transcribed it into text in a new note within the Apple Notes app. Nice.

Ok, that’s not revelatory. But it was nice to confirm I can just voice dictate Notes via Siri. That’s something I’ll truly find useful sometimes.

What else can Siri do?

Well, I thought it might be good to skim the official Apple site for the answer. To my surprise, I discovered there’s a whole entire page dedicated to Siri, it’s very well done, has lots of info, and I’d guess it’s going to see a major update around WWDC24. It’s worth a good look.

On that page, I noticed that Apple currently calls Siri a “digital assistant” and an “intelligent assistant.” This last one would be I.A. Will Siri become an A.I.A. this year?

The Siri page highlights how Apple’s digital assistant is both personal and private, thanks to the Neural Engine.

“The power of the Apple Neural Engine ensures that the audio of your requests never leaves your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple Vision Pro unless you choose to share it. On-device intelligence makes your experience with Siri personal — learning your preferences and what you might want — while maintaining your privacy.“

This angle might remain Apple’s best differentiator among A.I. — that’s a good thing. That said, I admit I’m generally against A.I. because so far, it’s been overhyped and just doesn’t deliver anything useful to me.

In fact, it feels like every tech company out there is trying to shove A.I. down our collective throats, as if we suddenly need or want it. But the more I see it shoehorned into every corner of app or device, the more I begin to loathe it.

But maybe, just maybe, Apple can pull it off. Maybe with A.I. or a new Neural Engine, the Cupertino folks will finally do what most Apple customers have wanted for over a decade, just actually, really, make Siri truly good.