As expected, Apple's assistant is about to get much more helpful thanks to a load of new AI-powered capabilities. During WWDC, the company previewed a new version of Siri that can take actions on your behalf and understand a wide range of new queries. The new version of Siri has a better understanding of the apps on your phone and will be able to take more than 100 actions based on your activity and device. For example, you could ask Siri to show you specific photos or memories in your Photos app or to find tracking details for an expected delivery from an email in the Mail app. Siri will also be able to perform some tasks for you, like adding an address to a contact card, tweak a photo, or share a summary of your notes in an email.

Have you seen the meme about people who dangle too many things on their fingers for no reason whatsoever? I'm not proud to admit it, but I'm one of those. No matter how big of a bag I'm carrying, I always find my hands full, making it difficult to interact with my phone or smartwatch on the go. Which is why voice controlled assistants and hands-free gestures are so appealing. With the Apple Watch Series 9, the company is introducing two new methods of interaction: Double Tap and Raise to Speak (to Siri).

Kurt "The CyberGuy" Knutsson explains five great accessibility features on your Apple iPhone. If you have an iPhone, you probably know about the helpful function of "Siri," or your Apple virtual assistant. Depending on how you set up your phone, if you hold down the side button (or home button if your model has one) or say "Hey Siri," you'll easily activate the feature. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER You may use Siri to call friends or family, send texts, and maybe you occasionally ask a question. However, did you know about these 10 super-helpful features?

After years of being forced to use Apple services on the iPhone by default, those restrictions are finally easing up a bit. As noticed by MacRumors earlier today, the iOS 14.5 beta appears to let you set third-party music services as default with Siri. This means you can ask Siri to play a particular song or album and it'll go straight to Spotify or YouTube Music. Currently, Siri only searches and plays things from whatever music you have in the Apple Music app, be it your own collection of songs or the Apple Music subscription catalog. It sounds like after iOS 14.5 is installed, Siri will ask you what music service you want to use when you ask it to play a song.

Apple's new, cheaper HomePod is a tough smart speaker to nail down. On the one hand, the HomePod Mini boasts impressive audio quality for its size. The HomePod Mini also has a Thread radio that lets it act as a smart home hub, but for now, there are only a few Thread-enabled smart devices available to control. And while Apple's new Intercom feature makes for an easy way to broadcast messages to household members, it doesn't allow for two-way calling. Now, if you're a dedicated Apple user and you've been waiting for a more affordable Siri-powered smart speaker than the $300 HomePod, the $99 HomePod Mini is your best--and only--bet.

Now your iPhone or other Apple device can help you determine if you have symptoms associated with the coronavirus. You can simply ask Siri about symptoms of the coronavirus – "Siri, what are the symptoms of the coronavirus?" The assistant will ask you whether you certain symptoms such as fever, dry cough or trouble breathing and if you have been in contact with someone who might have contracted the virus. Even if Siri assesses that you are at lower risk, the assistant will offer some advice on hand washing and social distancing. Answers come from the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For iPhone users who don't want to venture far to control their smart homes, look no further than Apple HomeKit. Like Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant, you can use HomeKit to control and command your favorite HomeKit-compatible smart devices. Apple HomeKit isn't compatible with quite as many devices as the aforementioned digital assistants, but unlike smart home systems such as Samsung SmartThings, it doesn't require a specific hub to configure. All you need to get started is to scope out the compatible hardware--door locks, smart bulbs, and so on--and once these gadgets are synced up, you can walk through the door and ask Siri to turn on the lights! The Apple Home app lets you control connected devices.

Politics are bound to be a topic of conversation at Thanksgiving meals across the country today. Whether someone at your meal decides to share their thoughts on the state of America in 2018 is up to them. One thing you shouldn't do: ask Siri about Donald Trump or how old the president is. In an apparent glitch first spotted by The Verge, asking Siri the question "who is Donald Trump" or "how old is Donald Trump" returns an image of male genitalia in place of a picture of the 45th president of the United States. USA TODAY was able to replicate the glitchwhen asking Siri "who is Donald Trump" on an iPhone X on Thursday evening.

Sure, the formerly-cutting-edge virtual assistant has become the butt of many a tech joke, but Apple's Siri problem is only getting bigger. As Amazon and Google develop artificial-intelligence assistants that can do tasks small (set multiple cooking timers) and large (hold conversations with you and others), Siri has been stuck saying, "Here's what I found on the Web for that." At Apple's biggest software event of the year Monday, just four months after HomePod's release, the speaker was mentioned only once. Apple does have some new ideas about what Siri should do for us when iOS 12 launches for iPhones and iPads in the fall: We'll be able to program strings of tasks. A single custom phrase will, say, shut off the lights, turn down the thermostat and launch a podcast. But it feels like the ultimate marketing fake out.

On Saturday, iPhone users around the world began testing and confirming what is arguably Siri's most bizarre response to a question yet. Before grabbing your own phone to test this out, however, be mindful of anybody else around. The randy robo-response was apparently first reported on Reddit's Apple community, where a user by the name "thatwasabaddecision" suggested that people ask Siri to "define the word mother," wait for the assistant to ask for an additional definition, and say "yes." What the Reddit user didn't point out, which readers learned by doing the test themselves, was that the second definition Siri offers is succinct and seemingly inaccurate. "As a noun," the computer-generated voice says as of press time, "it means, short for'motherfucker.'"