Leaked screens show Siri in Apple's upcoming OS X 10.12 with always-on 'Hey Siri'

AppleInsider

New images published on Wednesday appear to support rumors that Apple will finally bring Siri to the Mac in the next major version of OS X, premiering at WWDC 2016 in June.

A Dock icon shows the familiar Siri waveform, while a Menu Bar icon simply uses the word "Siri," according to MacRumors, which said it obtained the images from a reliable source on Apple's software plans. One or both icons could potentially be placeholders, changing before the next OS X upgrade releases in the fall, or even Apple's WWDC keynote.

The site added that Siri for the Mac will also support always-on commands via "Hey Siri." That option is allegedly turned off by default however, requiring people to go into the Preferences menu to toggle it.

Siri's absence on OS X has been conspicuous. The platform launched for iOS in 2011, and in fact arrived on the Apple TV last year via tvOS. Feature-wise, it's uncertain what might make the Mac incarnation unique.

Alongside iOS 10, the next big OS X upgrade should be a centerpiece of the WWDC keynote, scheduled for June 13. Apart from adding Siri support, Apple may also be planning to rename the platform back to "MacOS", in keeping with the names of its other operating systems.

rotateleftbyte

I really do hope you can turn it off. As someone who has never felt the need to talk to their computer since my boss found me swearing like a trooper when cabling up a prototype MicroVax System I don't even use Siri on my phone.
I'd expect that this would be a major turn off for a lot of users if you couldn't disable it.
To be honest, I am struggling to see this as a USP/can't do without feature. I am sure that there are better things Apple could be adding to the OS than this.

rogifan_new

Google announced Google Assistant at I/O today. From what I'm seeing in my Twitter feed it sounds impressive. home.google.com



All snark aside, I'm perplexed at how Apple let Siri languish for so long to the point where someone like Amazon could come in and start to own the space. And now Google is following suit. Considering how important privacy is to so many Apple had/has the perfect opportunity to create a solution for people who aren't comfortable using Google services. God I hope we get more than just current Siri on the Mac at WWDC. I hope Apple wows us with something we weren't expecting. Perhaps that includes big changes to iMessage too?

mike1

rotateleftbyte said:

I really do hope you can turn it off. As someone who has never felt the need to talk to their computer since my boss found me swearing like a trooper when cabling up a prototype MicroVax System I don't even use Siri on my phone.
I'd expect that this would be a major turn off for a lot of users if you couldn't disable it.
To be honest, I am struggling to see this as a USP/can't do without feature. I am sure that there are better things Apple could be adding to the OS than this.

From the second paragraph. "That option is allegedly turned off by default however, requiring people to go into the Preferences menu to toggle it."

knowitall

It cannot be 'renamed back' because it was never 'MacOS'.

isteelers

rogifan_new said:

Google announced Google Assistant at I/O today. From what I'm seeing in my Twitter feed it sounds impressive. home.google.com



All snark aside, I'm perplexed at how Apple let Siri languish for so long to the point where someone like Amazon could come in and start to own the space. And now Google is following suit. Considering how important privacy is to so many Apple had/has the perfect opportunity to create a solution for people who aren't comfortable using Google services. God I hope we get more than just current Siri on the Mac at WWDC. I hope Apple wows us with something we weren't expecting.

Amazon is hardly starting to own the space.  Google will always follow as you stated above, as will Microsoft and Amazon.  They followed the iPhone, iPad, Siri, Apple Pay etc. etc.   Those companies will always follow as Apple sets the trends in every sandbox they play in. 

rogifan_new

isteelers said:

rogifan_new said:

Google announced Google Assistant at I/O today. From what I'm seeing in my Twitter feed it sounds impressive. home.google.com



All snark aside, I'm perplexed at how Apple let Siri languish for so long to the point where someone like Amazon could come in and start to own the space. And now Google is following suit. Considering how important privacy is to so many Apple had/has the perfect opportunity to create a solution for people who aren't comfortable using Google services. God I hope we get more than just current Siri on the Mac at WWDC. I hope Apple wows us with something we weren't expecting.

Amazon is hardly starting to own the space.  Google will always follow as you stated above, as will Microsoft and Amazon.  They followed the iPhone, iPad, Siri, Apple Pay etc. etc.   Those companies will always follow as Apple sets the trends in every sandbox they play in. 

Google is certainly not following when it comes to AI and voice assistant. Sorry but Apple is not setting the trend here. Google Now is much better than Siri. And the Amazon Echo is getting good reviews, even from Apple-centric tech bloggers.

I will say though I think all these "bots" are a silly fad and I couldn't care less that Apple isn't leading there.

MacPro

Presumably the next developer release might have this (before WWDC) given 10.11.5 just went live?

VisualSeed

rotateleftbyte said:

I really do hope you can turn it off. As someone who has never felt the need to talk to their computer since my boss found me swearing like a trooper when cabling up a prototype MicroVax System I don't even use Siri on my phone.
I'd expect that this would be a major turn off for a lot of users if you couldn't disable it.
To be honest, I am struggling to see this as a USP/can't do without feature. I am sure that there are better things Apple could be adding to the OS than this.

As it can be disabled in iOS I see no reason why it wouldn't be disabled in Mac OS. This article seems to confirm this as well stating it is shipped disabled.

coolfactor

knowitall said:

It cannot be 'renamed back' because it was never 'MacOS'.

rogifan_new said:

isteelers said:

Amazon is hardly starting to own the space.  Google will always follow as you stated above, as will Microsoft and Amazon.  They followed the iPhone, iPad, Siri, Apple Pay etc. etc.   Those companies will always follow as Apple sets the trends in every sandbox they play in. 

Google is certainly not following when it comes to AI and voice assistant. Sorry but Apple is not setting the trend here. Google Now is much better than Siri. And the Amazon Echo is getting good reviews, even from Apple-centric tech bloggers.

I will say though I think all these "bots" are a silly fad and I couldn't care less that Apple isn't leading there.

Bots are not a fad, they are the future. It will always be difficult for a service like Siri to be perfect at everything. Per-service bots will fill that need, specializing in an individual service. When Siri can control the bots, then things will get really interesting.

sockrolid

I hope that Apple can coordinate Siri-enabled devices so only one of them answers to "Hello Siri."
Right now, if two always-on-Siri-enabled iOS/watchOS devices are nearby and you say "Hello Siri," both of them will respond.

Come to think of it, notifications aren't coordinated either.
Multiple devices, within inches of each other, will all "buzz" almost simultaneously.
Only my Watch needs to do that.  Not all my iOS/watchOS devices need to physically/audibly alert me about the same thing.

welshdog

knowitall said:

It cannot be 'renamed back' because it was never 'MacOS'.

It kinda was?

rogifan_new

coolfactor said:

knowitall said:

It cannot be 'renamed back' because it was never 'MacOS'.

Bots are not a fad, they are the future. It will always be difficult for a service like Siri to be perfect at everything. Per-service bots will fill that need, specializing in an individual service. When Siri can control the bots, then things will get really interesting.

Bots are the future? Don't make me laugh. They're the new fad for a tech world that is bored.

volcan

coolfactor said:
Bots are not a fad, they are the future. It will always be difficult for a service like Siri to be perfect at everything. Per-service bots will fill that need, specializing in an individual service. When Siri can control the bots, then things will get really interesting.

Totally! As a programmer, I get some parents of high school age children asking me how their child can get into a lucrative programming career. Lately I've been warning them that programming could be the next low paying job because I think we will have bots controlling the complicated stuff. For example, one might say to a bot: "create a user registration, log in and forgotten password feature". The bot may come back with "I've created it with the standard default form fields, would you like to add any others?" View by view you will tell the bot what to do without knowing a single line of code. There is a trend like that also going on in the legal business where before legal aids used to read through lengthy contracts looking for hidden fine print. Now it is being done mostly with computers making a legal aid job almost worthless.

elijahg

rogifan_new said:

isteelers said:

Amazon is hardly starting to own the space.  Google will always follow as you stated above, as will Microsoft and Amazon.  They followed the iPhone, iPad, Siri, Apple Pay etc. etc.   Those companies will always follow as Apple sets the trends in every sandbox they play in. 

Google is certainly not following when it comes to AI and voice assistant. Sorry but Apple is not setting the trend here. Google Now is much better than Siri. And the Amazon Echo is getting good reviews, even from Apple-centric tech bloggers.

I will say though I think all these "bots" are a silly fad and I couldn't care less that Apple isn't leading there.

For a fair while now Apple seems to introduce a feature as the Next Big Thing™ and then completely ignore it for years, letting the competition catch up and surpass. Photos doesn't seem to be any different to when it was introduced, iMovie gets the odd prod, their pro software ends up half abandoned until people kick up a stink, and they don't seem to know what to do with iTunes.

Considering that Siri was introduced 5 years ago on the relatively slow and now very old iPhone 4s, it's really not kept up. It's a little bit faster, but most of the processing is still done on Apple's servers so it's reliability isn't great. Frequently I ask it to something and it just searches the web, even for simple things. It got completely confused when I asked what's 20 horsepower in watts, interpreting watts as what and then searching Bing (yuck). Apple's seemingly got no-one working on fuzzy logic, Maps search is terrible. I ask to Facetime audio with someone, it then asks what phone number I want to use. I then say Facetime audio again, and it calls the person via FTA. Even really simple things, such as turn on low power mode it can't do. That's got to be one of the most simple things to fix, and it's still broken after 5 years... 

cali

PLEASE PLEASE
let this be an indication that Apple is revamping Siri for iOS 10.

rogifan_new said:

isteelers said:

Amazon is hardly starting to own the space.  Google will always follow as you stated above, as will Microsoft and Amazon.  They followed the iPhone, iPad, Siri, Apple Pay etc. etc.   Those companies will always follow as Apple sets the trends in every sandbox they play in. 

Google is certainly not following when it comes to AI and voice assistant. Sorry but Apple is not setting the trend here. Google Now is much better than Siri. And the Amazon Echo is getting good reviews, even from Apple-centric tech bloggers.

I will say though I think all these "bots" are a silly fad and I couldn't care less that Apple isn't leading there.

Apple brought Siri to market not Goog. Goog will always follow because when they create their own path they trip over themselves(glass).

cali

elijahg said:

rogifan_new said:

Google is certainly not following when it comes to AI and voice assistant. Sorry but Apple is not setting the trend here. Google Now is much better than Siri. And the Amazon Echo is getting good reviews, even from Apple-centric tech bloggers.

I will say though I think all these "bots" are a silly fad and I couldn't care less that Apple isn't leading there.

For a fair while now Apple seems to introduce a feature as the Next Big Thing™ and then completely ignore it for years, letting the competition catch up and surpass. Photos doesn't seem to be any different to when it was introduced, iMovie gets the odd prod, their pro software ends up half abandoned until people kick up a stink, and they don't seem to know what to do with iTunes.

Considering that Siri was introduced 5 years ago on the relatively slow and now very old iPhone 4s, it's really not kept up. It's a little bit faster, but most of the processing is still done on Apple's servers so it's reliability isn't great. Frequently I ask it to something and it just searches the web, even for simple things. It got completely confused when I asked what's 20 horsepower in watts, interpreting watts as what and then searching Bing (yuck). Apple's seemingly got no-one working on fuzzy logic, Maps search is terrible. I ask to Facetime audio with someone, it then asks what phone number I want to use. I then say Facetime audio again, and it calls the person via FTA. Even really simple things, such as turn on low power mode it can't do. That's got to be one of the most simple things to fix, and it's still broken after 5 years... 

It's been SO LONG and Siri has advanced so little.

This is why I suggested Apple swallow their pride and buy Viv. They need all the help they can get right now. I believe Siri will be one of the most important features in the future. Buy hound, buy evi heck buy Cortana! Integrate Watson DO SOMETHING!!!!

MacPro

volcan said:

coolfactor said:
Bots are not a fad, they are the future. It will always be difficult for a service like Siri to be perfect at everything. Per-service bots will fill that need, specializing in an individual service. When Siri can control the bots, then things will get really interesting.

Totally! As a programmer, I get some parents of high school age children asking me how their child can get into a lucrative programming career. Lately I've been warning them that programming could be the next low paying job because I think we will have bots controlling the complicated stuff. For example, one might say to a bot: "create a user registration, log in and forgotten password feature". The bot may come back with "I've created it with the standard default form fields, would you like to add any others?" View by view you will tell the bot what to do without knowing a single line of code. There is a trend like that also going on in the legal business where before legal aids used to read through lengthy contracts looking for hidden fine print. Now it is being done mostly with computers making a legal aid job almost worthless.

Just wait till a boss bot tells assistant bots what to program, then head for the exits!  

MacPro

cali said:

elijahg said:

For a fair while now Apple seems to introduce a feature as the Next Big Thing™ and then completely ignore it for years, letting the competition catch up and surpass. Photos doesn't seem to be any different to when it was introduced, iMovie gets the odd prod, their pro software ends up half abandoned until people kick up a stink, and they don't seem to know what to do with iTunes.

Considering that Siri was introduced 5 years ago on the relatively slow and now very old iPhone 4s, it's really not kept up. It's a little bit faster, but most of the processing is still done on Apple's servers so it's reliability isn't great. Frequently I ask it to something and it just searches the web, even for simple things. It got completely confused when I asked what's 20 horsepower in watts, interpreting watts as what and then searching Bing (yuck). Apple's seemingly got no-one working on fuzzy logic, Maps search is terrible. I ask to Facetime audio with someone, it then asks what phone number I want to use. I then say Facetime audio again, and it calls the person via FTA. Even really simple things, such as turn on low power mode it can't do. That's got to be one of the most simple things to fix, and it's still broken after 5 years... 

It's been SO LONG and Siri has advanced so little.

This is why I suggested Apple swallow their pride and buy Viv. They need all the help they can get right now. I believe Siri will be one of the most important features in the future. Buy hound, buy evi heck buy Cortana! Integrate Watson DO SOMETHING!!!!

Go all the way and buy Microsoft then we might have decent games on Steam too!  

paxman

sockrolid said:

Not all my iOS/watchOS devices need to physically/audibly alert me about the same thing.

Absolutely. When the entire house lit up for every text and email I got it was too much. For a short while my iPad and Mac would also ring when the iPhone rang. I turned most of those features off pretty quickly. There are four family members in my house all of whom have more than one device. My teenage daughters live in an intense social networked world and notifications are a major pain. Its like walking around with someone tapping your shoulder every other second just in case you want to hear the latest gossip. On reflection I think notifications add little but grief. Is there any real tangible benefit?

cali

digitalclips said:

cali said:

It's been SO LONG and Siri has advanced so little.

This is why I suggested Apple swallow their pride and buy Viv. They need all the help they can get right now. I believe Siri will be one of the most important features in the future. Buy hound, buy evi heck buy Cortana! Integrate Watson DO SOMETHING!!!!

Go all the way and buy Microsoft then we might have decent games on Steam too!  

Huh?

I thought Steam games were identical on both platforms?

I wasn't kidding about Cortana either. I mean give it a few years and Windows phones will be forgotten. At the least Apple could license Cortana algorithms and she can live on in iPhone...