Apple Execs Talk iMessage Popularity, Siri API, and More on “The Talk Show”

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber held a special edition of its popular podcast, The Talk Show, with very special guests: Apple SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller, and SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi. They touched on such as iOS 10, Siri APIs, the Mac App Store, and more.

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If you watched the WWDC 2016 keynote, you may recall how much spotlight iMessage received, and even Apple’s press release touted the app as the most popular among users. When asked why there was so much focus on iMessage Federighi said (via MacRumors):

Every time we add emoji it would be the biggest thing. We work all year on a new file system or something and people are more excited about the two more emoji. So we figured if there’s one place where we could make a difference in how people experience iOS it’s Messages.

With iOS 10, Apple has finally opened up Siri to developers, but with limitations. The reason behind limiting Siri to certain kinds of apps is that Siri largely uses these domains and is able to provide a better user experience. Since Apple is working on expanding Siri’s capabilities, developers can expect further Siri APIs.

As explained by Schiller and Federighi, Apple’s philosophy is that it first creates a baseline for its technology and only then allows developers to build on it, since its goal is to maintain a great user experience.

The two Apple execs also addressed the new “feature” of deleting stock apps in iOS (via iMore). As it turns out, those apps won’t be deleted, just the user data and necessary hooks. The apps will remain on the device, as they are part of the signed packet Apple uses to assure authenticity. This also eliminates the need to “re-download” them: Instead, when a user opts to have them on the home screen, these apps will be re-linked back into iOS.

Addressing concerns that Apple may have focused more on the iOS App Store than on the Mac App Store, Schiller said Apple “loves all of our kids”, and they are now happy with what they have.

These are only a few of the topics they touched on. The full talk should be available on Daring Fireball shortly.

Image credit: Matthew Panzarino

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