iOS 9 announced with brand new Siri and Proactive feature

iOS 9 was just announced during WWDC 2015 and it will feature a completely new Siri experience.

Siri offers plenty of new features. You can, for example, ask her to show you photographs you snapped in June, and have that pop up. She also has a brand new user interface, which looks similar to what’s already available on the Apple Watch. Another feature that’s sort of part of Siri is the Proactive Assistant, which can read your calendar and let you know, for example, when you might need to leave for a meeting based on traffic conditions. It also knows what you typically do every day. So, if each day at 9 a.m. you open up the Weather app, it might do that for you ahead of time.

There’s also a brand new Search, and a new Search API, so you can search inside applications that are installed on the device. That means, if you’re searching for an AirBNB reservation, for example, you can use Spotlight and find a reservation inside of the AirBNB app. Search can now tap into things like the calendar, apps, iBooks Store, clock, Wikipedia, Movies, Sports, Music., Netflix, Bing, Videos, Maps, Twitter and much more.

Apple said that Apple does all of this in a “way that does not compromise your privacy.” It’s not mining your email to learn more about you — “We don’t want to know,” Apple said — it’s all done on the device, and under your control. Apple says it won’t share any data with third parties, and anything it ever sends out, for information like traffic data, is anonymous.

iOS 9 should be out around the same time as the next iPhone, usually in September. We expect beta previews will be available soon.

Apple finally has a bonafide Google Now competitor. At WWDC on Monday, Apple said a big part of iOS 9 was intelligence, talking a lot about being “proactive.”

A lot of Proactive hinges on the intelligence of Siri. Going forward, she’ll know how to react based on what you do. If you plug in your headphones, she’ll start playing music. When you get in your car, she’ll cue up an audiobook. Pretty much it’s exactly as the rumors suggested, and is designed to make the entire experience of iOS smarter.

There’s also a new suggest app feature provided by Siri. Spotlight and Siri will now be more integrated, and suggest things you might want to do or people you might want to contact based on your email and calendar. Just pull down the Spotlight shade and you’ll now see a much more lively screen.

Apple is also introducing an API for search. In iOS 9, when a user performs a search, Apple will be able to find the content behind the apps already on your device. Much of the stuff Apple is talking about takes place right on your device, rather than happening in the cloud (ahem, Google). Apple said this is meant to give users peace of mind and greater security, clearly taking a shot at Google’s data mining.

Finally, Apple said that getting Mail on your phone will automatically add it to your calendar, though I’m sure you can probably turn that off.