Apple's WWDC is part catch-up, part Siri tweaks

Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is the site of Apple's WWDC confeence (Photo: Edward C. Baig) SAN FRANCISCO -- To many of the folks keeping score, Apple was already behind rivals heading into its annual Worldwide Developers Conference here in San Francisco. In the hotbed fields of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and voice response, Apple has lagged Amazon, Google, and Facebook -- even though Apple's Siri was the first to familiarize most people with the idea of a vocal personal assistant. I'm sorry to say that Apple didn't say a peep about VR or AR (augmented reality) during what was a packed two-hour presentation. What the company did do -- and it really, it had little choice -- was give Siri more to do and to open her up to third-party developers. She pops up more on the watch, on Apple TV, in the car, and yes, finally, on the Mac.