Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- Macworld explores iOS 27’s new AI-powered Siri, which demonstrates impressive capabilities including detailed Taylor Swift knowledge and enhanced Apple Music integration.
- The upgraded assistant can identify specific acoustic songs from past concerts, answer nuanced celebrity questions, and create playlists through natural language commands.
- Available in developer beta with full release expected later this year, Siri AI represents a significant leap forward for Apple’s virtual assistant technology.
As you already know by now, iOS 27 comes with a new version of Siri that’s built entirely on a new AI foundation. And this has finally unleashed the potential of Apple’s virtual assistant, since it’s no longer limited to answering trivial questions or performing basic tasks like setting timers or creating reminders.
The new Siri is more context-aware than ever. It can read through your emails, calendar events, files, messages, and more to provide you with the best answers. And thanks to advanced AI models, you can talk to it using natural language.
That’s all impressive on paper, but it’s another thing to start using it. I already have early access to Siri AI thanks to the iOS 27 developer beta, and I’ve tried out some pretty specific commands. And almost immediately, I was able to use the new Siri to do things I couldn’t before.
Putting Siri to the test
Of course, the old version of Siri has long been able to play songs on Apple Music, but the commands are quite limited. You can ask for things like “play this song” or “play songs by this artist,” but nothing too complicated. That’s changing with the new Siri AI.
Siri AI now has an extensive knowledge base to find song, artist, and album information that might not be in Apple Music’s metadata. It’s LLM can also use reasoning to understand more complex queries and add songs to my Apple Music queue. That means I shouldn’t need to manually create my own playlist or filter the songs I want to listen to.
I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan, and I love listening to the setlist from The Eras Tour, which is already a playlist on Apple Music. But I wanted to put Siri to the test to see how much it could do inside Apple Music.
Siri Ai was able understand a complicated question about Taylor Swift’s music in natural language and deliver accurate results.
Foundry
I started by asking Siri, “Play songs from the Lover album that were part of the The Eras Tour setlist.” This is more complicated than it sounds and way too advanced for the old Siri. For one, Swift went through several incarnations of the Eras Tour, including removing one of the “Lover” songs from the setlist midway through the tour, and for another, she has several variations of the “Lover” album. But Siri was able to quickly identify all five “Lover” songs that were played during the tour’s main setlist (not including acoustic tracks).
Then I asked it to add those songs to a playlist on Apple Music, which it did. Apple Music already has a feature called Playlist Playground for creating playlists with AI, but being able to do this on the fly with specific voice commands changes everything. It’s a stark difference from the old Siri, which often plays the wrong songs on my HomePod.
Siri’s knowledge base is current enough to know Taylor Swift was at the Knicks game less than 24 hours ago.
Foundry
I didn’t stop there. To put Siri’s knowledge of all things Taylor Swift to the test, I also asked some pretty specific questions, like “What did Taylor Swift do this week?” Siri AI gave me the right answer. It knew she attended the NBA Finals in New York the night before and that she had released a new song last week for the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack. Siri even knew what she was wearing: “a blue T-shirt with “Stevie Knicks” printed in orange lettering—a playful mashup of Fleetwood Mac icon Stevie Nicks and the New York Knicks. She paired the shirt with black Area slit jeans and wore her hair pulled back in a braid adorned with a blue ribbon.”
Not enough to prove Siri’s a real Swiftie? I asked Siri what surprise acoustic songs Taylor performed on the second night of The Eras Tour in São Paulo, the show I attended. Not only did it get the songs correct, but Siri was also able to find and play both songs on Apple Music.
Of course, Siri AI is still in beta, and it will likely remain that way for a while, possibly even after the first general release arrives later this year. But the results are already quite impressive for a first beta, and it shows that Apple has finally succeeded in delivering the new AI-powered Siri it promised back in 2024.
Siri AI will be available on all devices compatible with Apple Intelligence, which means the iPhone 15 Pro or later, or an iPad or Mac with the M1 chip or later. The iOS 27 update will be available to the public this fall.
