Siri’s Getting a New Voice and Some Other Updates

Siri has a slightly new voice. The voice assistant is now generated entirely by a neural text-to-speech technology rather than a human-based recording.

There’s extended support for Siri on other Apple devices like the AirPod. On the Bluetooth earbuds, Siri can read your incoming messages and let you respond immediately. It’s still unclear whether you will need to confirm wanting to respond before Siri starts the voice dictation, as the demo suggests it is immediate.  You can now also split AirPods if you want to share it with a friend while streaming content.

On the HomePod, the speaker can now recognize between different voices for personalized responses. When you’re commuting to and from the home, you can also tap your iPhone over the HomePod to transfer where you’re at in a song between the two devices.

A few new updates round out Siri: CarPlay support is now compatible with more third-party apps like Pandora and Waze, and Siri can suggest automated shortcuts based on your activities and connected apps and smart home devices.

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