A New Era for Siri AI in MacOS 27
Apple’s latest suite of updates has brought about significant improvements to Siri AI across various platforms, including iOS 27, macOS 27, and watchOS 27. The company’s efforts to enhance the capabilities of its AI-powered assistant have yielded promising results, as evident in the beta previews.
However, it appears that Apple is not content with the upgrades they’ve already announced. Through continued beta testing and tweaks to Siri AI, the company has been quietly incorporating new features that require users to dig deeper to discover. One such feature is a hidden menu for Siri AI that appears when users highlight text in macOS 27.
How Siri AI’s Hidden Menu Works
When you select text in macOS 27, a floating menu appears in the top left of the highlighted text. Upon moving the cursor over it, the menu expands to reveal a range of options, including ‘Proofread,’ ‘Rewrite,’ ‘How does this sound?’ and ‘Edit with Siri.’ Users can also ask Siri AI to extract key points from the text or summarize it entirely. The menu’s functionality is context-dependent, meaning it may display different options based on the text’s content. For instance, if the highlighted text contains a friend’s contact information, Siri AI may prompt you to view their contact details. Similarly, if the text includes a date, Siri AI might suggest creating a Calendar entry.
The menu’s contextual awareness is a testament to Apple’s mission to make Siri AI more useful in specific scenarios. This feature plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall user experience, particularly in situations where users need to perform tasks related to text manipulation or organization.
Enabling Siri AI’s Menu in MacOS 27
It’s worth noting that this feature is disabled by default, at least as of macOS 27 developer beta 3 and public beta 1. Apple did not include it in the release notes, and instead, a Redditor stumbled upon it, sharing instructions on how to turn it on via the r/MacOSBeta community.
However, users should be aware that this feature, along with macOS 27 as a whole, is still in beta testing. MacRumors warns that the feature may not always work as expected, and users may encounter odd bugs or glitches after enabling it. Nevertheless, for those already running the beta and curious about this feature, it’s an intriguing aspect to explore.
Instructions for Enabling the Feature
To try it out, users will need to open their Mac’s Terminal app and paste the following command: sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool true
After running the command, users will need to restart their Mac for the feature to take effect. Once restarted, they should see the menu whenever they highlight text, albeit with some possible hiccups. If the feature proves too unstable or users simply don’t like it, they can undo it by pasting the following command into Terminal: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool false
It’s essential to remember that this feature is still in its beta phase and may not be fully polished. Users should exercise caution when enabling it and be prepared for potential issues.
In the next section, we’ll delve deeper into the implications of this feature and its potential impact on the future of AI-powered assistants.
