Siri

Siri is a virtual assistant created by Apple Inc. that uses voice queries and natural language processing to answer questions, perform tasks, and control devices. It was originally developed as an independent app by Siri, Inc., founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Tom Gruber. Apple acquired Siri, Inc. in 2010, and Siri was introduced on October 4, 2011 with the iPhone 4S.

Since its introduction, Siri has been expanded to additional Apple devices and platforms, including iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, HomePod, Mac, and Apple TV, as well as through iOS and macOS software updates. It supports multiple languages and dialects and can interact with third-party apps via certain APIs.

Siri handles tasks such as sending messages, placing calls, setting reminders and alarms, playing music, providing weather, traffic, and sports information, translating phrases, and controlling smart home devices. It uses a combination of on-device processing and cloud-based processing for speech recognition and natural language understanding, with privacy-focused features such as optional improvements via anonymized data.

In the competitive landscape, Siri is one of several digital assistants, alongside Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and others. Apple continues to add features and improvements to Siri through software updates, including better on-device processing, multilingual support, and deeper integration with system apps and services.