Leaked Apple documents point to Siri getting major upgrades in 2021
Apple may finally be giving Siri some long-overdue improvements.
Siri was one of the first digital assistants, but in recent years it has fallen well behind rivals like Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant. It now, however, appears that some major improvements are finally on the horizon.
As part of leaked Apple documents obtained by the Guardian, which detail how Apple engineers adjusted Siri to "deflect" questions about feminism and the #MeToo movement, the British newspaper also picked up some interesting information about Apple's future plans for its digital assistant.
After detailing improvements coming in iOS 13 such as the ability to use Siri to find your other Apple devices or identify songs through Shazam on the Apple Watch , the paper reports that the leaked documents "contain a further list of upgrades listed for release by 'fall 2021.'" Among the new features are the ability to "have a back-and-forth conversation about health problems" and "built-in machine translation."
The documents also mention "'new hardware support' for a 'new device,'" which the Guardian says could potentially allude to Apple's rumored augmented reality headset given that the fall 2021 release goes by the codename of "Yukon +1" in the leak and iOS 13's codename according to the documents is Yukon. References to the headset have previously been spotted in iOS 13 code.
The outlet suspects that the 2021 timing code indicates a possible switch by Apple to two-year OS upgrades, as opposed to its traditional yearly routine. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the leaks.