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At last year's Global Developer Conference, Apple announced the new Siri Shortcuts app, which allows iOS users to create custom voice commands for their apps. Today, the company unveiled a series of updates to its Siri software. Application of shortcuts to enhance the experience of users and application developers. He also noted that the application would now be preinstalled on iOS devices from iOS 13 instead of being offered only as a download from the App Store.
In the current version of Siri Shortcuts, users are invited to record their own voice command to launch a favorite application or perform a specific action. For example, "order my coffee" could trigger a mobile order placed in the ordering application of a cafe. The developers were able to place a button in their application to ask users to create a shortcut and suggest a sentence as part of this process. However, users must actually follow the steps of pressing record and saying the command before they can use it.
This may have prevented some users from adopting Siri shortcuts. They were perhaps confused about the process or did not want to do the extra steps. Or maybe they pressed the "Add to Siri" button to see what it was doing, but were not in a place where they wanted to record their voice command – as in a public place, maybe .
With updated Siri shortcuts, developers can suggest a voice command as before, but instead of registering it, users can choose to use it at the touch of a button.
Apple is also responding to one of the most important requests from developers with the introduction of parameters in the shortcuts. This will make the shortcuts more conversational, says Apple. For example, if a user wants to find something to cook in his favorite recipe app, he can launch it via a shortcut to display a list of his favorite recipes. When they selected a recipe from the list, the user was then invited to this recipe and started playing the cooking instructions.
This is made possible by Siri's new ability to ask additional questions. If you have asked Siri to order a take-away order, for example, the wizard may ask you what order you want.
Another novelty, also by popular demand, is the support of automation. This feature is available in a new Automations tab of the application and allows users to set when to run a shortcut when creating a custom command in Siri Shortcuts applications. For example, you can set a shortcut to run according to the time, when you start a workout on your Apple Watch, when you connect to CarPlay, and so on.
The editor of the updated shortcut application now allows the complete configuration of an application's actions, including the ability to transmit information in or out of the action through parameters. This makes it possible to combine the actions of an application with others to obtain more robust and multi-step shortcuts. In practice, this would allow users to do something like run a shortcut for a restaurant delivery application, choose their meals, place the order, then send an SMS to the whole family to find out what to eat and when to arrive at.
Siri is also thinking at the appropriate time to suggest to the end user a shortcut that could increase adoption by the user, says Apple. In iOS 13, Siri can detect events in your apps and create suggestions for adding them to Calendar, reminders to save with your app or instructions, if any. This learning takes place on the device, not in the cloud, to protect the privacy of users.
The shortcut application itself will also have an improved view of the gallery in iOS 13 where you will see the preconfigured shortcuts of your apps.
All shortcuts work on Apple platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and HomePod.
The changes to the shortcuts were announced this afternoon to developers attending the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference.
Earlier in the day, Apple also announced a new, more natural voice for Siri and the ability to respond to messages via Siri with the help of AirPod.
Today, Google and Amazon are attracting a lot of attention from their voice platforms due to the niche share of HomePod in the mainstream consumer speaker market. But Apple reminded the audience of Siri's massive reach. His smart assistant now has more than 500 million active devices a month, generating more than 15 million applications, the company said.
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