What are new App Intent capabilities in iOS 18?

Generated on 8/29/2024

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In iOS 18, Apple has introduced several new capabilities for App Intents, enhancing their integration with Siri and other system experiences. Here are some of the key updates:

  1. Expanded App Intents: Previously, app intents were meant for the most habitual tasks in your app. In iOS 18, this guidance has changed to include a broader range of functionalities. Now, anything your app does can be an app intent, allowing for more comprehensive integration with system experiences like Siri and Shortcuts.

  2. New Siri Capabilities: Siri can now invoke any item from your app's menus, enhancing its ability to interact with your app's features. This is part of a broader effort to make Siri more conversational and capable of understanding context better.

  3. App Intent Domains: Apple has introduced new App Intent domains, which are collections of APIs designed for specific functionalities like books, camera, or spreadsheets. In iOS 18, twelve domains are being released, with Mail and Photos available immediately.

  4. Spotlight Integration: New APIs allow you to index your app entities in Spotlight, bringing powerful semantic search capabilities to your app.

  5. Personal Context: Apple Intelligence equips Siri with a rich understanding of personal context, allowing it to search and reason over information across your device in a safe and private way.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the sessions like Design App Intents for system experiences and Bring your app to Siri.

Design App Intents for system experiences

Design App Intents for system experiences

App Intents power system experiences in controls, Spotlight, Siri, and more. Find out how to identify the functionality that’s best for App Intents, and how to use parameters to make these intents flexible. Learn how to use App Intents to allow people to take action outside your app, and see examples of when to navigate into your app to show contextual information.

What’s new in App Intents

What’s new in App Intents

Learn about improvements and all-new features with App Intents, and discover how this framework can help you expose your app’s functionality to Siri, Spotlight, Shortcuts, and more. We’ll show you how to make your entities more meaningful to the platform with the Transferable API, File Representations, new IntentFile APIs, and Spotlight Indexing, opening up powerful functionality in Siri and the Shortcuts app. Empower your intents to take people deep into your app with URL Representable Entities. Explore new techniques to model your entities and intents with new APIs for error handling and union values.

Platforms State of the Union

Platforms State of the Union

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Bring your app’s core features to users with App Intents

Bring your app’s core features to users with App Intents

Learn the principles of the App Intents framework, like intents, entities, and queries, and how you can harness them to expose your app’s most important functionality right where people need it most. Find out how to build deep integration between your app and the many system features built on top of App Intents, including Siri, controls and widgets, Apple Pencil, Shortcuts, the Action button, and more. Get tips on how to build your App Intents integrations efficiently to create the best experiences in every surface while still sharing code and core functionality.

Bring your app to Siri

Bring your app to Siri

Learn how to use App Intents to expose your app’s functionality to Siri. Understand which intents are already available for your use, and how to create custom intents to integrate actions from your app into the system. We’ll also cover what metadata to provide, making your entities searchable via Spotlight, annotating onscreen references, and much more.