Apple Job Posting Hints at Siri for Macs in OS X 10.9

[MacRumors]

MacRumors has been seeing builds of OS X 10.9 in site logs since November, which is also when hints of Siri integration for Macs began appearing.

A recent Apple job posting (via TechCrunch / AppleInsider) reinforces the rumor that Siri might be bundled with the next version of OS X. In its listing for a Siri UI Engineer, Apple specifies that candidates should possess "Familiarity with Unix, especially Mac OS X" and a "Passion for the Macintosh platform and writing simple, elegant software that is easy and fun to use."

The listing, which does not include a specification for experience with iOS aside from knowledge of Apple's development APIs, states that the engineer will be in charge of implementing the content that appears within Siri's conversational view. The position will also require collaboration with other Siri teams.

This is a broad-ranging task - we take every application that Siri interacts with, distill it down to fundamentals, and implement that application's UI in a theme fitting with Siri. Consider it an entire miniature OS within the OS, and you get a good idea of the scope!

Of course, each of these little "snippets" corresponds to an individual application, so you will have extensive cross-functional work with many other teams. You'll need to work with them to enable access to their data and behaviors, and wire them up to your implementations. As a result, strong API design is needed to keep communications ideal.

As of mid-January, OS X 10.9 activity has increased considerably on MacRumors, suggesting the new operating system, with Siri included, may be imminent.

Job postings for Apple's iLife/iWork team also surfaced this week. iWork's last major update was in 2009, while iLife was last updated in 2010. An overhaul of the apps could potentially include Siri integration, allowing for voice commands for simple tasks such as photo and music editing.

Hits from systems running OS X 10.9 on MacRumors.com
Apple has been upgrading OS X on a yearly basis. 10.8 Mountain Lion was released in July of 2012, a year after 10.7 Lion was released in July of 2011. The first developer preview of OS X 10.8 appeared in February, and OS X 10.9 could follow a similar timeline.

Article Link: Apple Job Posting Hints at Siri for Macs in OS X 10.9

[irDigital0l]

Also take some advice from Google Now.

[irishgrizzly]

I'd have to agree with Peter on this feature...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAA1xgTTw9w

[Aidan5806]

Can there be new features added to siri before it gets ported onto macs? There's so much potential......

[kbt1020]

Only will work on 2013 Macs as older Mac hardware is not compatible

[mrsir2009]

An exclusive feature of the all new Retina MacBook Pro

[sza]

Siri for Mac may not be so useful as it for iOS since it is easier to type on a Mac.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by irDigital0l

Also take some advice from Google Now.

Was that clever double meaning intentional?

[JNanny]

2012 MBP with Retina should be compatible

[Robsta2142]

Is it not unlikely given how recent the posting is that is may not come on OS X 10.9? Or is there enough time before filling the roles, developing the software and releasing it in July?

[nzalog]

Hands free porn surfing... Apple is on to something.




Not sure what my roommate in going to think when he hears "Siri, google image hot asians chicks with nice ass" coming from my room.

[Squilly]

Hope my rMBP is compatible when it comes out. Pointless either way. OS X is based off of Unix?

[nzalog]

Originally Posted by Squilly

Hope my rMBP is compatible when it comes out. Pointless either way. OS X is based off of Unix?

Believe it's based of FreeBSD which is based of Unix.

[eagandale4114]

Originally Posted by Squilly

OS X is based off of Unix?

Yep. So is iOS.

[Raidersmojo]

Originally Posted by Robsta2142

Is it not unlikely given how recent the posting is that is may not come on OS X 10.9? Or is there enough time before filling the roles, developing the software and releasing it in July?

Nah, they'll just throw it into OS X and have this guy work out the bugs later

[marc11]

Available for late 2012 MBP and newer only...

[Sam Yikin]

I'm pretty sure that Siri on Mac will NOT be exclusive to new Macs, and here's why:
1. Siri as an exclusive might be enough to sell $200 phones but not >$1000 Macs. Using it to sell a $20 OS sounds like it might be good enough.
2. I think that any hardware limitations that might've prevented Siri from being on older iPhones won't prevent it coming to older Macs. Why? Because I just dictated this sentence on my 2008 iMac and the speech recognition was just as good as Siri on my iPad 4. I believe it is because of the difference in processing power; AFAIK the first iPhone with Siri needed a special speech processing chip but desktop/laptop processors should be able to handle it on their own.

[Stridder44]

To the surprise of no one

[slrandall]

Originally Posted by sza

Siri for Mac may not be so useful as it for iOS since it is easier to type on a Mac.

It would be fantastic if I could type to Siri like a chat partner.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by Sam Yikin

I'm pretty sure that Siri on Mac will NOT be exclusive to new Macs, and here's why:
1. Siri as an exclusive might be enough to sell $200 phones but not >$1000 Macs. Using it to sell a $20 OS sounds like it might be good enough.
2. I think that any hardware limitations that might've prevented Siri from being on older iPhones won't prevent it coming to older Macs. Why? Because I just dictated this sentence on my 2008 iMac and the speech recognition was just as good as Siri on my iPad 4. I believe it is because of the difference in processing power; AFAIK the first iPhone with Siri needed a special speech processing chip but desktop/laptop processors should be able to handle it on their own.

You mean a 800-1050 dollar phone.

----------

Originally Posted by Raidersmojo

Nah, they'll just throw it into OS X and have this guy work out the bugs later

They’ll fix the bugs with 10.10

[kimble3]

Is it time for AppleScript to really show it's power? Applications that support AppleScript already have a built in vocabulary so it should be fairly straightforward to allow Siri to control existing apps.

[Sam Yikin]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

You mean a 800-1050 dollar phone.

I was mostly talking about the phone itself and its cost, obviously the long term cost is much more, but it's sold to people at $200.

[Squilly]

Originally Posted by eagandale4114

Yep. So is iOS.

For some reason, Linux rings a bell. Does it have anything to do with Unix? Or is it Unix?

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by Squilly

For some reason, Linux rings a bell. Does it have anything to do with Unix? Or is it Unix?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure linux is built on unix too. Just not as pretty

[1Alec1]

Originally Posted by kimble3

Is it time for AppleScript to really show it's power? Applications that support AppleScript already have a built in vocabulary so it should be fairly straightforward to allow Siri to control existing apps.

Very good idea. I never thought about that. AppleScript, Automator, and shell scripts + Siri! Actually, you can do that with the current voice recognition system in theory, but it never works, so you can't really.

----------

Originally Posted by Squilly

For some reason, Linux rings a bell. Does it have anything to do with Unix? Or is it Unix?

Yes, it is based on UNIX. And Mac is not based on Linux but on UNIX (indirectly).