Apple will improve Siri for iPhone 16 through better mics

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that the microphones in the iPhone 16 range will be markedly improved, and says that it's part of Apple's plans to integrate more AI into Siri more effectively.

Most rumors about the iPhone 16 concentrate on camera upgrades, and Apple has appeared to be behind the industry on AI. However, Ming-Chi Kuo's latest report based on supply chain information claims a radical improvement is coming to Siri on iOS 18 — and iPhone 16 will gain new microphones to help.

"My latest survey indicates that all iPhone 16 models will feature a significant upgrade in microphone specifications," writes Kuo. "In addition to better water resistance, the key specification upgrade is a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to improve the Siri experience significantly."

"Apple reorganized its Siri team in 3Q23 to integrate AIGC/LLM [Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content, Large Language Model]," he also reports. "Voice input will be the key interface for AI/AIGC/LLM on mobile smartphones, so strengthening Siri's hardware and software features and specifications is the key to promoting AIGC."

Based on this, Kuo extrapolates that Apple may be planning "to integrate more AI/AIGC capabilities into Siri as a key selling point of the iPhone 16."

While this is the first known report of planned improvements to the iPhone's microphones, the claim of improving Siri fits with certain recent reports. It's been claimed that Apple is spending around $1 billion per year to develop AI that it intends to use to make Siri better, possibly in 2024.

6 Comments

byronl 377 comments · 4 Years

About 1 year ago

Will older iPhones get the new Siri?

CheeseFreeze 1339 comments · 7 Years

Siri is a backend service with some frontend. I would be very surprised if Siri ends up being exclusive to the iPhone 16.
They have to get rid of Siri in its current state, which is one big failure.

mike1 3437 comments · 10 Years

Siri is not a function of the device. Yes. improved mics might improve spoken word recognition a bit, but the real improvements will come on the back end. I would expect them to be available for any device from iPhones to HomePods.

daviator 11 comments · 15 Years

There is a huge AI improvement to Siri in iOS 17.2 that I just encountered today (in the latest beta.). If someone sends you an iMessage containing a photo, and you’re listening to messages in the car or otherwise via Siri, it will use AI to describe the contents of the photo.

I was shocked as I was driving earlier and listened to a message from my partner and Siri said “Kenny sent a photo of a bowl of soup and a plate of meat and vegetables.” I had to pull over and look, and that turned out to be a completely accurate description. A very cool new feature and a great use of AI.

macgui 2471 comments · 17 Years

mike1 said:

Siri is not a function of the device. Yes. improved mics might improve spoken word recognition a bit, but the real improvements will come on the back end. I would expect them to be available for any device from iPhones to HomePods.

Apple can do a lot more to improve Siri without requiring better hardware. Any improvement made because of new mics wouldn't be backward compaible. That shouldn't stop Apple from given all Sire-capable phone a much better Siri.

Siri isn't as smart as Alexa though she can do a few thing on the Watch and phone without an internet connection. In that case Alexa is dead. Siri is also slower than Alexa and just not nearly as capable.

daviator said:

There is a huge AI improvement to Siri in iOS 17.2 that I just encountered today (in the latest beta.). If someone sends you an iMessage containing a photo, and you’re listening to messages in the car or otherwise via Siri, it will use AI to describe the contents of the photo.
I was shocked as I was driving earlier and listened to a message from my partner and Siri said “Kenny sent a photo of a bowl of soup and a plate of meat and vegetables.” I had to pull over and look, and that turned out to be a completely accurate description. A very cool new feature and a great use of AI.

That's a feature I can appreciate. I frequently get images sent to me when driving, most work related some not, but I don't care to open them to see what's what. I would have to wait for a red light and that's a ticket I don't need. To pull off the description above, Siri should be able to do a lot of other cool stuff. Here's looking at you, 17.2.