Apple continued to build out its Siri virtual assistant this week with new data integrations for golf and tennis, additions seemingly timed to coincide with next Monday's start to the Australian Open.

4 comments

Plumbing hardware giant Moen is building out its U by Moen smart shower system with the latest virtual assistant technology from Apple and Amazon, allowing users to turn on fixtures, adjust temperature settings and more with their voice.

19 comments

Smoke detector manufacturer First Alert is getting into the premium speaker business with its Onelink Safe & Sound smoke and carbon monoxide alarm, an in-ceiling device that boasts integration with Apple's HomeKit platform.

12 comments

The shutdown of Microsoft's Groove Music service has eliminated music recognition capabilities in the software giant's Cortana personal assistant, giving Apple's Siri -- and its tight integration with Shazam -- a leg up on the competition.

29 comments

The HomePod -- now due in 2018 -- will mark Apple's first real attempt at making Siri an "ambient" voice assistant. Arguably, though, the company needs to push a lot harder if it wants people to choose Siri over alternatives from Amazon and Google.

59 comments

Apple has granted YouTube video creator Marques Brownlee an iMac Pro, and he has published a video about his first week with the high-end device.

20 comments

While little else solid is known about the iMac Pro's shipping configuration with only a matter of days before it ships, it appears that a regulatory filing associated with the device calls it model A1862.

53 comments

Introduced this summer at WWDC17, Apple's HomePod was immediately positioned next to Amazon Echo and Google Home by bloggers as a "smart speaker" serving primarily as a way to chat with a voice assistant. But that's not how Apple introduced it.

142 comments

Developers Guilherme Rambo and Stephen Troughton-Smith have found "Hey Siri" functionality in the macOS code base with support for multiple user accounts all driven by what appears to be the A10 Fusion processor, according to the pair. AppleInsider talks about why Apple might do that, and what it would mean for the iMac Pro.

12 comments

The iMac Pro may have an A10 Fusion processor running it's own iOS, called BridgeOS, to handle some functions -- notably 'Hey Siri'.

92 comments

A delve into the new HomePod firmware, and developer documentation shows that Apple's forthcoming smart speaker will process full Siri queries on a synchronized iPhone or iPad rather than refusing them, or processing them on-device.

20 comments

Apple's Siri understands a huge number of commands and queries, from relatively simple tasks like turning on HomeKit-connected lights to more complex requests like translating words into foreign languages. AppleInsider went through the list and picked out 50 of the most useful.

14 comments

The first iOS 11.2 beta -- launched earlier on Monday -- enables SiriKit for third-party developers working on HomePod support, according to Apple.

3 comments

Between new users, and long-time iPhone owners just getting into Siri, there are a lot of people trying out Apple's voice recognition technology every day -- and getting upset that it's not exactly like a Star Trek computer. Siri does need training to be as good as it can, and to assist in that endeavor, there are a series of phrases and query construction tips to get started with.

24 comments

Asking Siri to text or call contacts is one of the virtual assistant's basic functions, but some names can be hard for the system to understand and pronounce. AppleInsider shows you how to ensure correct pronunciation, and contact retrieval, in this video.

18 comments

Some names can be hard for Siri to pronounce, and if you don't correct the matter won't be accurately retrieved by Apple's voice-powered assistant. Here's how to fix them.

15 comments

Apple's latest contribution to its machine learning blog is a dive into how the software behind the "Hey Siri" command works, and how the company uses a neural network to convert the acoustic pattern of a voice to filter it out from the background.

2 comments

There's a good chance that if got an iPhone or an iPad for Christmas, you've probably still using Siri's default voice settings -- but as AppleInsider can show, there are a few ways to personalize Siri's sound and functions in iOS 11 [now with video].

24 comments

An Apple executive tasked with managing backend infrastructure for the company's iCloud products, including the iCloud Drive cloud storage service, has left the company, potentially signaling a dramatic shift in favor of in-house data centers, according to a report on Friday.

26 comments

Apple appears to have bought out a Init.ai -- a startup focused on machine learning and processing of natural language originally intended to assist in customer service -- to enhance Siri in some way.

4 comments