Apple plans to make its voice-recognition software, Siri, an "intelligent personal assistant" by making it more proactive, the company said yesterday.
The smarter Siri was among announcements to come out of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicked off yesterday. Among other unveils was subscription-based music streaming service Apple Music powered by iTunes, and a new operating system.
Apple's improvements to Siri means users can now ask it to search their e-mails to find a contact to match an incoming call if the caller is not in the address book.
In addition, using a combination of Siri and Apple Music, users will be able to search for songs from a movie soundtrack or a certain year.
Siri will intelligently know if a user is engaged in exercise and suggest an appropriate song, even if the handset's screen is locked. Siri will also monitor the user's usage behaviour throughout the day and proactively suggest apps it knows the user uses at certain times.
The new Siri will be available with the later version of mobile operating system iOS 9.
El Capitan was announced as the latest operating system for Mac, version 10.11.
New features include improved gesture support and a more detailed spotlight search. Users will also now be able to split their screen.
El Capitan will be available free to Mac users before the end of this year.
Other announcements included Apple Pay being made available in the UK next month, the second operating system for the Apple Watch, updates to Apple Maps, and a new app called "News" to personalise users' news content.
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