Apple Makes Siri a Steering Wheel Button

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Updated! Apple announced today at its Worldwide Developers Conference that Siri will be offered via a steering wheel control button by 9 leading car makers within the next 12 months.

Apple Siri Steering Wheel ControlBMW, GM, Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chysler, and Honda will provide a button on the steering wheel that will work with Siri—Apple’s voice driven personal assistant, which also received an update Monday. (Notice, Ford, with its Sync and MyFord Touch is not included in the mix).

Apple Siri steering wheel controlScott Forstall, head of Apple  iOS development. introduced the steering wheel feature calling it “eyes free.” As it “Lets you keep hands on steering wheel while you’re using your phone,” according to a live blog of the event via MacWorld.

Siri, under new iO6, will also now deliver sports information, movie information, send your tweets and launch apps.

Siri will also be  integrated with Facebook so you can just speak to post on Facebook.  (See our story earlier today, which just may be completely wrong now).

The new version of Siri can also activate a new Maps function from Apple that includes turn-by-turn directions.  Maps also has re-routing and the ability to zoom out to see a wider surrounding area.

The new Siri also allows you to make restaurant reservations through integration with OpenTable and Yelp.

In terms of sports, you will be able to ask, “What was the score of the last Giants game?”  Siri will tell you players’ stats by name, and show a player “card” displayed on the screen, said Barron’s live blog of the presentation.

You may recall Apple recently patented a steering wheel control device.   The controls pictured during the conference (via Gizmodo) showed a simple Siri button but not the “click wheel” in the Apple patent.

By the way, the new iOS6 also permits FaceTime video chat over 3G (not just WiFi, as in the past).  It will be available, along with the new Siri features this fall.

Source: Macworld, Gizmodo, Engadget, Barron’s

Top photo via Engadget, lower right photo via Gizmodo

 

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1 Comment

  1. Excited to see more options for Siri support from Apple for the automotive environment. Hopefully the aftermarket manufacturers get serious about quickly updating OS’s in their units to better support it!!

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