Apple WWDC and Siri

For years, Apple has used the stage of its Worldwide

Developers Conference to announce upgrades to the

Siri personal assistant that would make it more useful.

This year's plan, according to a Siri trick Apple has put

out there: Siri will be smarter, get a new look and a new

voice.

Ask Siri to tell you about the WWDC conference, which

starts June 4th in San Jose, and you get one of three

answers both in audio and written form.

—"I'm gonna have a shiny new home. Well, not really

shiny, more meshy and matte."

—"La, la, la, Siri is getting a brand new voice."

—"I don't want to brag, but I'm getting a lot smarter. It

might be all that late night studying I've been doing."

The WWDC is when Apple welcomes app developers to

hear about what's new with the iPhone maker, delivers

previews of the IOS mobile operating system update and

hypes them on creating great apps to take advantage of

the new features.

What Apple promised about Siri at past WWDC's:

— 2013. Siri would get a new interface and a smoother

voice,

—2014 Apple brought hands-free Siri operation to iPhones

and iPads (say "Hey, Siri," to wake it up)

—2015. A move to make Siri more "proactive" to answer

questions without excessive prompting.

—2016, Apple announced a new initiative that it promised

would really make Siri a more helpful tool — the ability to

marry Siri with third-party apps like Uber and Circle. At the

time, Apple said opening Siri outside of just Apple apps

would make usage more widespread. But few app developers

signed on.

—2017. The HomePod, Apple's answer to Amazon Echo a

nd Google Home connected speakers, was introduced at

WWDC, with Apple touting on-command music selection

via Siri and the Apple Music subscription service.

Apple had no comment on this year's plans.