A huge leak has revealed the key new features Siri will be getting in iOS 18 including app and system settings control, smart features such as AI-generated email and news summaries, and much more.
Someone at Apple will be looking for a new job if this latest, massive leak is real: sources inside Apple have revealed all the new features of Siri that Apple intends to announce at WWDC this week. It's the best guide yet to what Apple's AI push will actually mean for us, our devices and our apps.
The leak comes via AppleInsider, which has been given details not just of the features but of the prompts Apple has been using to test them. And it's clear that Siri's new powers go beyond just understanding us better.
The new features are coming to Apple's core apps, which include Books, Calendar, Camera, Contacts, Files, Freeform, Keynote, Mail, News, Notes, Reminders, Safari and more.
Here's what to expect.
What will Siri's new AI features deliver?
In Books you'll be able to navigate around books, open specific or recent books, change the on-screen theme or search for particular types or genres in the Book Store.
Siri in the Camera app will enable you to open the app in a specific mode, such as portrait or slow-mo, to set timers, to toggle video recording and to switch between front and rear facing cameras.
Keynote will be able to create a new presentation with a specific theme, add videos from Safari, add content – the example given is "add the image named cat to slide 1" and control presentations. And Safari will get a new feature that'll summarise the content of web pages to give you the gist more quickly.
One of the most interesting apps for me is Mail, which feels like it's been ignored a little lately. Main will now be able to analyse and classify emails into categories such as news, promotions, socials, transactions and so on, and will enable you ask Siri to reply to a single or multiple person in an email conversation by saying something like "reply to everybody in this email with the body text 'ok, I'll see you there.'" Siri will also be able to block senders, mark messages for reading later, summarise messages and threads, compose emails and create AI-generated "smart replies".
Notes will give Siri more control over creatingm naming and deleting notes and tags, and it's expected to have in-app audio recording, transcription and automatic summarisation. You'll be able to store those in the note so everything's in one place. There will also be integration with the new calculator and the ability to include complex equations and graphs in notes.
The app that'll probably be shown off the most by Apple is pjhotos, which will enable you to search for objects, open photos of specific people or pets, create new albums and memories, enhance or filter photos and carry out organisation such as renaming albums or deleting or hiding photos.
Apple is expected to show off these new features this week, and while the surprise is gone it'll still be fascinating to see how these new features work. They're expected to come to devices early next year, with some features exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
