Significant Updates to Siri AI Capabilities
Apple has released a second Release Candidate (RC) of the watchOS 27.2 update, just four days after the release of the first version. This update puts the finishing touches on a set of new features that focus primarily on enhancing the capabilities of the Siri AI smart assistant on Apple Watches.
The new improvements include the assistant's ability to retain the context of previous conversations, allowing users to ask follow-up questions about previous interactions, such as inquiring about restaurant recommendations provided by the assistant earlier. Siri AI can now also pull information from more diverse sources, including photos attached in the Messages app, attendee lists in the user's calendar, and voicemail, in addition to more accurate results from browsing history and the Reading List in the Safari browser.
What Changes Practically for Users?
Beyond the smart features, the update focuses on improving overall performance, as users have reported a noticeably faster response in executing basic tasks on the device. The update also includes the "Excluded Apps" feature, which gives users centralized control from their iPhone to choose which apps are allowed to be accessed by Siri, Search, and Suggestions, thereby enhancing data privacy.
Linguistically, Apple has expanded the scope of Siri AI support to include French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. However, it should be noted that these smart features are not currently available in the European Union or mainland China.
Technical Notes and Update Availability
The update targets registered developers and testers in the public beta program and can be downloaded via the Settings app on the Apple Watch or the Watch app on the iPhone. The official release of the final version of watchOS 27.2 is expected to take place next week.
This release comes at a time when Apple is seeking to address user feedback regarding system stability, as some users on technical forums have noted a marked improvement in the speed of executing on-device commands compared to previous 27.0 versions, which suffered from slow response times for some simple tasks.