iPhone 6 Rumors: New Siri Search Planned For Photos Using Voice, Tagging

iPhone 6 Rumors: New Siri Search Planned For Photos Using Voice, Tagging
(USPTO)
Zachary Stieber
1/1/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

The iPhone 6 rumors continue flying, and one of the latest is that the upcoming iPhone could include a more in-depth Siri search.

Apple began with iOS 7 to automatically sort through users photos based on time and location.

But a newly discovered patent application reveals that the company wants to allow Siri to search through iOS photos based on voice search and tagging, reported Apple Insider.

The new search could be ready in time to be included on the iPhone 6 when it comes out sometimes this year.

Users could tag their photos with “text strings,” according to the application, “Voice-Based Image Tagging and Searching.”

“Such text strings would be associated with speech input, much like users can access data on their iPhone by speaking in plain conversation to Siri, the device’s voice-driven personal assistant,” according to the Insider.

“Apple’s application notes that a growing volume of photos collected by users on devices like iPhones makes them increasingly hard to sort through. The company notes that tagging photos based on names of people or places makes it easier to find what users are looking for. Apple’s system would also allow users to tag photos with their voice. In one example provided by Apple, a user tells their device, ‘This is me at the beach,’ and the corresponding picture is tagged accordingly.”

Another example of the potential future with this type of tagging is that users could tell Siri they are in a certain photograph, and it could then tag other photos that have the user’s face.

“With photos properly tagged, users could then use their voice in a similar manner to search for the pictures they are looking for,” reports Apple Insider. “In another example, a user asks their device, ‘Show me photos of me at the beach,’ and related items are delivered.”

The application says in its abstract: “The electronic device with one or more processors and memory provides a digital photograph of a real-world scene. The electronic device provides a natural language text string corresponding to a speech input associated with the digital photograph. The electronic device performs natural language processing on the text string to identify one or more terms associated with an entity, an activity, or a location. The electronic device tags the digital photograph with the one or more terms and their associated entity, activity, or location.”