How Apple users can now access Siri without an internet connection?

Apple's Siri on iPhone and iPad will soon be able to perform actions even without the internet, although there are limits with the iOS upgrade.

Apple’s digital assistant Siri will process audio on-device by default in iOS 15, meaning you will be able to use the feature without an active internet connection. Apple says the upgrade will also make Siri faster.

Processing audio on-device will make using Siri more private, says Apple. This follows the company’s well-established preference for implementing machine learning features on-device, rather than sending data away to the cloud to be processed.

Apple makes a huge deal about being at the cutting edge of privacy protection online. For all these years, Siri has required an internet connection to work. It processes all your requests online, even for things that have no online factor-like setting timers or adjusting volume. 

With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, that’s finally changing. Siri will gain a new on-device speech recognition model on all devices with an A12 Bionic processor or later (that’s an iPhone XS/XR or later). That’s a huge boon to the privacy-conscious, as it means your recorded voice is never, intentionally or unintentionally, leaving your device. Apple has confirmed with Macworld that offline Siri access will not be available in macOS Monterey.

Siri will mostly be able to perform actions related to the device the assistant is installed on. In other words, most things that can be processed locally are where the real value will be and this includes launching apps, making changes to the settings, controlling music, and other tweaks to the system in general. As to be expected, what won’t be possible to do offline is the more general virtual assistant use cases, such as getting answers to questions based on information that is obtained from the internet.

Besides this, Siri can also make calls or send texts while you have your hands full and can also announce incoming calls and messages on your Apple AirPods.Siri can also prove to be a boon while chatting to finish the sentence for you. Apple users can also start a FaceTime or Group FaceTime using the voice recognition system.

Other new Siri features

Apple has a few other touches in store for Siri in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. None of them are groundbreaking, but all offer the quality of life improvements that should make using Apple’s voice assistant a little more delightful.

• Siri can (optionally) announce messages in CarPlay.

• If you have AirPods, Siri can announce incoming notifications that are time-sensitive (or turn on any notifications from an app in Settings).

• You’ll be able to ask Siri to control HomeKit devices at a specific time. For example, “turn off the living room lights at 10 p.m.”

• Apple is expanding Siri’s language support, too, with text-to-speech voice support in more languages and mixed Indic English and native language support.