Siri gets smart

Apple released OS 27 for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, and it comes with an AI version of Siri. It’s a vast improvement over the earlier versions, which were almost unusable. The new Siri works with all of the Apple apps, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Calendar, Photos, and Music. Your personal data stays on your phone, and even Apple can’t access it.

In David Pogue’s latest newsletter, he shows you 125 different things you can tell Siri to do. I’m using a lot of them already. Here are a few examples:

• (Highlight a folder of files on the Mac, right-click:) What’s the total of these invoices? What’s the average? (“The total for the six invoices found in your Receipts folder is $4,692.79. The average amount is $782.13.”)

• What are people waiting on me for? (Generates list from Mail, Messages, and Reminders. Incredible. Everything I did for this column was supposed to be for testing purposes only, but this one actually found stuff I’d forgotten I was supposed to do!)

• (Running late to a party:) What’s the apartment number!? (“The apartment number for the Bynum party tonight is 10-F.” Note: I never said what party or what day!)

• Change pickle to nickel. (You can use this when you’ve dictated a text message, and realize that there’s a mistranscription. Now you can correct it by voice! So much simpler than fussing around with the insertion-point cursor.)

— MF