Skift Take
Generative AI is built directly into your iPhone, and while it's helped a little with travel so far, this is just the beginning.
Justin Dawes
Siri will soon be able to help users plan their trips. While it can't yet handle complex tasks like booking a flight, an AI-enhanced Siri can pull context from multiple apps to plan dinner around an event, share real-time flight information, and more.
For more complex questions, Siri connects with ChatGPT.
These were some of the many travel-related announcements Apple made at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, where the company shared updates to iOS 18, Vision Pro VR headset, Apple Watch, and more.
Check out all the travel-related highlights below:
Siri and the Upgraded AI
With the announcement of Apple Intelligence, Apple said it is focused on integrating AI across its operating system.
“This year marks the beginning of a new era for Siri thanks to the capabilities of Apple Intelligence,” Kelsey Peterson, director of machine learning and AI, said during the event.
The AI ​​upgrade gives Siri access to details across Apple-owned apps on your device. This means that when you ask for details about an upcoming booked flight, Siri can cross-reference flight information from emails and texts with real-time flight tracking to provide the latest arrival time. Siri can also look up a lunch reservation you made via text and tell you how long it will take to get from the airport to the restaurant.
https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Apple-WWDC24-Apple-Intelligence-Siri-flight-tracking-240610.mp4Source: Apple
Siri will become better at conversing in natural language, even when users make mistakes, and its upgraded memory will improve its ability to answer questions based on the context of previous questions, which wasn't possible before.
In Apple's hiking trip example, it would look like this:
User: “What's the weather like tomorrow in Muir Woods? Oh, wait a minute, it was the weather in Muir Woods.” Siri: “The forecast is for a sunny morning near Muir Woods National Monument.” User: “Create an event for a hike tomorrow at 9 AM.” Siri: “The hike will take place on June 11th from 9 AM to 11 AM.”
Siri will be able to perform more actions across apps, for example, users will be able to ask Siri to show photos from a specific trip.
AI can also help prioritize urgent emails and notifications, like boarding passes or same-day dinner invitations.
Source: Apple
For more complex questions, Siri is getting a connection with ChatGPT. Users can ask Siri for free, without an account, anything you can ask ChatGPT for, such as travel planning information. Paid ChatGPT users can connect their accounts to access premium features through Siri. Apple didn't explain how that would work with a dedicated ChatGPT chatbot like Kayak's.
ChatGPT connectivity will be available later this year, with plans to add more AI models in the future.
“There are other artificial intelligence tools that are useful for tasks that leverage broad world knowledge or provide specific domain expertise. We want to be able to use these external models without having to jump between different tools, so we're integrating them directly into the user's experience,” Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, said during the event.
iOS 18: New travel features for iPhone, iPad, and iMac
The iOS 18 operating system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac will be getting a host of new travel features this fall.
The Maps app will get new features to help users on hiking trips. The app will add topographical maps with trail networks and hiking routes, including all 63 U.S. national parks. Maps can be stored on users' phones and accessed offline, and come with turn-by-turn audio guidance. Users can also create their own hiking trails through the app. iPhone 14 will enable satellite connectivity, allowing users to send and receive texts via iMessage or SMS even without service. The updated event ticket design includes an event guide with venue maps and restaurant recommendations. According to Apple, the biggest photo upgrade ever will allow the app to automatically create albums for individual trips and store them in a new travel section. Apple Wallet users will be able to pay using points. Mail app users will be able to see snippets of messages grouped by sender. Apple gave United Airlines as an example, showing an email containing a flight confirmation and a reminder. Safari will automatically detect and highlight important information on the page, such as a hotel address or phone number.
Source: Apple
Apple Vision Pro: Virtual Travel
Apple is releasing a new tool that adds the option for virtual travel using its Vision Pro virtual reality headset.
This also includes plans for more immersive videos – 180-degree high-definition videos with spatial audio, aimed at making users feel like they are actually in the location of the video. An extreme sports series will be introduced in partnership with RedBull. Other upcoming films will feature wildlife, adventure sports, tourism activities and aerial shots of destinations.
For professional content creators, Blackmagic Design will release a camera specifically for producing immersive videos, and Canon will release a new spatial lens for its EOS R7 camera.
The headset also has the ability to convert regular photographs into three-dimensional spatial photographs.
https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Apple-WWDC24-visionOS-2-spatial-photos-240610.mp4Source: Apple
Vision Pro will soon be available on planes and even moving trains, with Meta announcing similar plans for its own Quest headsets this year.
Apple Vision Pro was released this year.
Apple Watch
The new Apple Watch operating system will add several new travel-related features.
A new translation app that uses AI for voice recognition and translation; Live updates from third-party apps and events like Uber; Alerts that warn users before it rains.
Source: Apple
Photo credit: Apple Vision Pro Virtual reality headsets will soon be available on trains as well as planes.