Voice Control in iOS 27: Accessibility feature predicts Siri app control
Apple has showcased a whole range of new features for people with disabilities for iOS 27. One of them looks very much like announced Siri improvements.
The new Voice Control function: Natural language helps with operation.
(Image: Apple)
For almost two years, Apple users have been waiting for the voice assistant Siri to finally become smart. Apple announced in the summer of 2024 that the system would soon act context-sensitively and could also control apps directly. So far, however, none of this has been implemented, and Apple is even willing to pay $250 million to class-action plaintiffs who had taken legal action against the premature advertising of non-existent features. But with iOS 27, everything is supposed to change. And Apple has now leaked parts of the new features itself: as part of a preview of new accessibility functions that are expected to reach the iPhone in the coming months. Particularly exciting is the improved so-called Voice Control.
Voice Control with a lower learning curve
Voice Control has been available on the iPhone for some time. It allows people who cannot operate the smartphone directly to control the system extensively via voice. However, this is not entirely straightforward. For example, you have to configure the voice control appropriately first, and it has a relatively high learning curve because you need to know exactly which commands it understands. If switches are not correctly labeled by developers, methods such as screen quadrants are used, which the user targets specifically.
Videos by heise
However, as part of the preview of the new accessibility features expected with iOS 27, Apple has now shown how to do it better: for the first time with natural language, powered by Apple Intelligence, as the company emphasized. This is likely to hide a combination of Apple's own language models and Google's Gemini LLM, which Apple is purchasing. Particularly interesting: The accessibility functions shown are not far from what Apple had announced for the improved Siri.
Navigation in the Files app by voice
The new Voice Control was initially shown for iPhone and iPad, but it could also come to the Mac. It is said to be significantly more intuitive. A demo video shows a user navigating in the Files app. It is enough to say that the folder in orange should be opened; its exact name is unnecessary. Descriptive information about the content also leads to success, even if it is slightly inaccurate. Direct control functions within an app were also shown, such as zooming to a specific area of a PDF file.
However, the new feature will initially only be available in English. There are variants for US English, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Apple did not provide information on internationalization. However, it is already clear: it would certainly be easy to integrate the function into Siri.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
