THE CRUNCH
Apple is opening Siri AI up to third-party apps. As part of the iOS 27.3 update rolling out on Tuesday in a Developer Preview, developers can now integrate the assistant's newer features in all apps, letting Siri AI draw on a user's personal context, handle natural language requests and use on-screen awareness to complete tasks.
The update also introduces app skills, a new feature developers can build to bundle several tasks into a single action. According to Apple's developer documentation, users won't need to name an app in their request while it's in the foreground, during a Live Activity, or in a conversation with Siri AI about that app. Apple's example: after requesting a ride, a person could watch the ride's Live Activity and then say "Hey Siri, change my ride pickup to a new address" without naming the app.
This is a notable widening of access. As 9to5Mac noted, Apple had previously made only a smaller set of Siri AI features available to third-party developers. Apple is extending the same expanded capabilities to its own apps too, including Calendar, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Safari and Weather, with examples such as finding a coffee shop visited last week or archiving files unopened for over a year. Users can also ask Siri AI what it can do in each app.