Siri Could Help Owners Answer Phone Calls, Transcribe Voicemails
Siri is already a personal assistant that can answer questions and look up things for users. Soon, the personal assistant might be able to answer the phone and respond with a customized message for users, CNET reports.
Instead of sending every call to voicemail, users will be able to customize their iPhone to have Siri reply with a message based on where they are or what they are doing, Business Insider reported Monday.
The service would work by having Siri answer incoming phone calls. Instead of a generic message, Siri could share information to certain people based on the user's location or why they are busy. The service will be called iCloud Voice, and it will also provide transcription services for voicemails. When a voicemail is left, Apple will have Siri convert them into text and then send the user a text message with the content of the voicemail.
Siri is competing with other personal voice assistants. Google offers Google Now on its Android-powered devices, but it is also available on iPhones and iPads. Microsoft's Cortana has been available on Windows mobile phones and now it is available on Windows 10 computers and tablets. Soon, Cortana will come to iOS devices. Apple needs Siri to continue getting smarter and iCloud Voice could help.
Currently, Apple employees are testing out the new iCloud Voice service. It is hoped that it will be ready sometime in 2016, Business Insider says. If this information is accurate, the service could become available with an update operating system, possibly iOS 10.
Siri is capable of playing back users' voicemails when they tell her to, but they will still have to listen to the audio format of them. With the iCloud Voice service, users could read their voicemails in text format silently. Google already offers text transcription for its voicemails through its Google Voice service, so Apple will try to make their service just as useful, or better.
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