Siri is about to make the leap. Double, as far as Italy is concerned. Apple’s voice assistant, the first to hit the market, but the less gifted than competitors Amazon Alexa e Google Assistant (a “competitive disadvantage” to respect the privacy of users), puts the turbo and thanks to the work done in recent years both on the front of algorithms and on the capabilities of artificial intelligence to work locally instead of in the cloud, it works better. Much better really.
And for Italy there is a further novelty: last June 7, during the latest developer conference Wwdc, Apple has announced that Siri features that we could not have before are also coming to us. For more than 5 years, the Apple TV can be controlled by voice, but not in Italian: from this autumn it will be possible. And the HomePod Mini can also be controlled in Italian, which will be marketed for the first time in our country by the end of 2021. And the most advanced functions of Siri in Italian will also be available on iPhones, iPads, Macs with M1 processor and CarPlay.
In short:
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Siri acquires new advanced functions of text recognition
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Siri becomes capable of carry out more complex actions and contextualized
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Siri it will work offline, using the Neural Engine of Apple processors
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All this will be also available in Italian, with the ability to hybridize searches with terms from other languages (such as song titles or singers’ names)
It is the paradox of the newcomer in the world of technology, who receives what really seem the best features: in Italy the Apple TV could not be fully exploited why you couldn’t use Siri to search across apps and service providers; there was no HomePod or the current HomePod Mini, which allows you not only to listen to music, but also to read messages, check the agenda, dictate emails and manage other personal activities in a way that respects privacy. In fact, Siri is not only managed locally by the Neural Engine, but does more: learn to recognize the voice of the various family members and to list individual people their appointments, without making mistakes or without making a mistake.
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In short, so far great absent from our market, Siri in an enhanced version allows not only to do more but also to better understand what we say, because Apple has invested heavily in the ability to recognize different languages intertwined. This is the case of India, where more than 800 different dialects coexist and where about twenty of the most popular are understood by Siri also in a mix with English (which is the national language of the Indian subcontinent and the one in which Siri responds). Likewise, Siri in Italian understands better when you mix sentences in English and has a more fluid ability to understand our speech in general.
Apple did not specify when will the release of Siri 2.0 in Italian, but it will be later this year, probably at the same time as the launch of the HomePod Mini.
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