Report: iOS 18 Will Let Users Control Apps With Siri

We’re just a little more than a week away from Apple’s annual WWDC developer conference, and more information has leaked about the company’s big AI push. The usually well-informed Mark Gurman previously detailed Smart recaps, voice memo transcription, and other new AI features coming to iOS 18, and the Bloomberg reporter has now followed up with more information about Siri’s AI revamp.

According to Gurman’s latest report citing people with knowledge of the matter, Siri on iOS 18 will let users control apps with their voice. This will be restricted to Apple’s own apps at launch, but Gurman said “hundreds of different commands” could be supported.

“Siri will be a key focus of the WWDC unveiling,” the reporter explained. “The new system will allow the assistant to control and navigate an iPhone or iPad with more precision. That includes being able to open individual documents, moving a note to another folder, sending or deleting an email, opening a particular publication in Apple News, emailing a web link, or even asking the device for a summary of an article.”

Gurman added that the AI-powered Siri will only be able to handle one command at a time at launch, but the company is already working on allowing users to chain multiple commands together. This will all be made possible with the use of new large language models under the hood. Apple has reportedly developed a new system to determine whether a command should be processed directly on the devices or tap into cloud resources, and the company is also expected to announce a new AI partnership with OpenAI during its WWDC keynote on June 10. This partnership actually is raising concerns at Microsoft, which invested billions of dollars into OpenAI, according to a report from The Information.

Thirteen years after the launch of Siri on iOS 5 back in 2011, iOS 18 is expected to give the digital assistant its biggest makeover in years. However, some of Siri’s new AI features may require users to upgrade. According to Gurman, many on-device AI features will require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, while Mac and iPad users may need a recent model with an M1 chip.