50 MACWORLD FEBRUARY 2020
iOSCENTRAL PIXEL ENVYfeels like a separate entity, rather than a
holistic part of everything I do on my
iPhone.
Invoking Siri takes over the entire
display. Why? In iOS 13, Apple made Siri a
simple overlay along the bottom of the
screen in CarPlay, but on your iPhone it
still takes over your whole device. It’s a
visual distinction that sends a clear
message—Siri isn’t a part of what you’re
doing, it’s something you stop what you’re
doing to use.
It’s also blissfully unaware of the
context of what you’re doing at the time. I
should be able to have any webpage
open and ask Siri to, for example,
“Translate this page into Spanish.” Or
select a word in any app, in any language,
and ask, “What does this word mean?” to
get a definition. If I have the Calendar app
open to a specific day, I should be able to
tell Siri, “Make an event for 6 p.m. to get
drinks with Susie,” and it will know by
context to put it on that day of my
calendar, rather than today.
Queries and commands to Siri should
understand the context of anything on my
screen. If I’m watching a movie trailer on
YouTube, I should be able to say, “Buy
tickets to this,” and get nearby movie ticket
results for that particular film.
This works in very limited capacity
today. For example, if I’m looking at an
iMessage conversation with my wife, Ivoice recorder feature that does real-time
transcription (go.macworld.com/vrcd) was
a dramatic display of its ability to
understand speech, but more impressive
is that it operated in Airplane Mode. In fact,
many Google Assistant features will be run
entirely on-device. This seems like the
kind of thing Apple should have
demonstrated when it overhauled the
Voice Memos app in iOS 12 (go.macworld.
com/vmem), doesn’t it?
With all of Apple’s talk about privacy
and security, why can’t Siri do on-device
real-time voice transcription of our Voice
Memos? Turn on Airplane Mode and you
can’t even invoke Siri at all. You get a big
fat error stating that you have to be
connected to the internet.
Why? Why can’t I tell Siri to launch an
app, or convert pounds into ounces, or
roll dice, or tell me about any of the info
that’s already on my phone (like calendar
events or reminders)? Siri should only
need to connect to the internet when the
answer to a question has to come from
there, like stock prices or sports scores.
“Remind me when I get home to call Jon”
should be able to set the proper
reminder without any network
connection. There’s no need to be
online for, “Show me photos of mom,” or
“Set an alarm for 7:30 tomorrow.”
Perhaps worse than its internet-
connected requirement is the way Siri still