When it comes to voice assistant features, Apple has Siri, and Google has Google Now. The latter is admittedly a more feature-rich tool as anyone who’s ever used an Android device can attest to, but apparently this is something that Apple will not take lying down. According to a report from 9to5Mac, things will be changing drastically with iOS 9.
According to them, Apple will be introducing a new feature called “Proactive”. This is a feature that has been in the works since 2013 ever since Apple acquired a personal assistant app called Cue. Basically what Proactive aims to do is become the Google Now for iOS by relevantly broadening Spotlight and Siri’s search results.
It is expected to find a new home to the left of your home screen, like where Spotlight used to be. It will also be able to display information such as upcoming flights such as those stored in the Passbook app. It will also display information that it has gleaned from other native iOS apps such as your Calendar where it would display upcoming events, and pull information from Maps to show you an estimated arrival time, directions, and so on.
It will also apparently be able to predict your behavior so if the first thing you do when you wake up is to check Facebook, Proactive will learn from that behavior and will show a Facebook button to access the app. It will also work with frequently called contacts. It’s definitely an interesting feature and one that could potentially put it on par with Google Now, but we guess we’ll just have to wait until WWDC 2015 for the details.
Filed in . Read more about Google Now, Ios 9 and Siri.