Apple introduced Siri on the Mac with a slam on Microsoft
As many predicted, Apple officially announced today that its Siri digital assistant is coming to the Mac as part of MacOS Sierra, the next free update to the newly-renamed operating system.
In an on-stage demo at today's Apple WWDC event, top exec Craig Federighi demonstrated Siri on the Mac, asking her "How do you like being on the Mac?"
"Lots of space, aluminum unibody walls, no complaint about the lack of Windows," Siri answered, a clear dig at Apple's long-time rival Microsoft Windows operating system.
You can watch the moment here:
Beyond just dissing Microsoft, Siri on the Mac can answer a lot of the same questions as her iPhone- and iPad-based versions, but she can also intelligently search your Mac's files. In the demo, Federeghi asked Siri to search for "files from Ken marked as draft," and she came back with the correct files.
Apple and Microsoft have been slowly reestablishing their once-intense rivalry: At an iPad event in March, Apple exec Phil Schiller slammed the fact that most Windows PCs are more than 5 years old, quipping "that's really sad."
But it's not all bad blood between the two companies. All versions of Siri use the Bing search engine, which is quickly becoming a nice little business for Microsoft, which may also give Google cause for concern.
In other Siri news, Apple announced that with the forthcoming iOS 10 for iPhone and iPad, it'll be opening up to developers, opening up the door for apps like Slack and Pinterest on the iPhone to be controlled via voice. It's currently unclear if you can get similar integrations on Siri with the Mac.