Siri to get international location services in iOS 6
Folks outside of the U.S. have not been able to access location-based services, such as information on nearby restaurant recommendations. It won't be that way forever though.
Siri users in the U.S. have had access to location-based services since the application launched last year. Elsewhere around the world, however, that hasn't been the case. But iOS 6 will change that.
Reddit posters using iOS 6 living abroad reported today that when they tried to use Siri for location-based service, like finding a restaurant nearby or locating a gas station, it worked. Killian Bell over at Cult of Mac confirmed those claims, saying that he tried it out with iOS 6 in the U.K. However, Bell reported that it wasn't as accurate as he would have liked.
The feature was mentioned briefly among a list of additions to Siri as part of iOS 6 on Apple's keynote earlier on Monday (skip to the 79:42 mark). The software changes goes out to users with the public release of iOS 6 in the fall, though developers have had access to it for the past four days.
So far, only those living in the U.K. and Australia have reported being able to use the location-based services. As Apple said while unveiling iOS 6 at WWDC earlier this week, the updated software is now "optimized for 15 countries around the world," and can understand more languages.
Updated at 3:30 p.m. PT with additional information about the feature.