Siri Is Transforming Into the Glue for Apple’s Next Ecosystem ⇥ macworld.com

Dan Moren, Macworld:

More to the point, Siri isn’t just, well, Sir anymore. In addition to the agent you talk to—and who talks back to you—Siri has become Apple’s catch-all for a variety of intelligent technologies designed to predict how you want to use your device: what apps you want to launch, what things you want to search for, even what you want to say. It’s all part of Apple’s very assistant-like attempt to help you figure out what you need before you know you need it. Perhaps the most prominent example of that is the Siri watch face in the upcoming watchOS 4, which displays contextual information and controls depending on your time and location.

So, Siri is available to us via pretty much all of our devices, and it reaches deep into the operating systems that run them. But it’s not yet taken the step that will turn it from a feature into a game-changing way for us to interact with technology. In order for that to happen, there are still a few steps along the way.

I love Moren’s way of framing a ubiquitous Siri that doesn’t care what device you’re using, and becomes a sort of universal layer above an operating system. But there’s a long road in front of anything like that. It would help if it could maintain context or not be completely disobedient, for a start.

For what it’s worth, I love the Siri face in WatchOS 4; it completely changes how I use my Apple Watch, especially with fitness updates, reminders, and rain notifications served up when relevant. I like Siri’s new voice in iOS 11. But these seem like incremental improvements when you consider that Siri has been integrated with iOS for six years now. Yet, I had hoped for far more progress in iOS 11, especially considering the HomePod’s forthcoming release.