THE MACSPARKY DISPATCH

Hi Friend,
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Last night I had an interesting experience. I was watching a baseball game with my wife, and she looked at me and said, "Didn't that guy pitch last night?" I told her no. She looked at me the way wives sometimes look at husbands, and then she pulled out her phone, activated Siri AI, and asked it, "Did number 59 on the Dodgers pitch last night?" Sure enough, Siri AI reported, he did.

Then she smiled at me and set her phone down. Gang, Siri is good at world knowledge. Up until last month, that was not the case. But now, when you need some quick information about the world, whether it be astronomy, cooking, or who pitched last night, you can now quickly and easily get that with the new Siri AI.

This is separate from the personal context stuff Siri does with your private messages, understanding what's on screen, or changing something inside an app. This is like having your own tiny know-it-all in your pocket. World knowledge is the thing that blew us all away when the original ChatGPT was released, and our use of AI has advanced a lot since then. It can do a lot more with agents and other techniques, but world knowledge is a fundamental tool on anybody's AI belt.

Until now, you've had to share your questions with some company's servers and sometimes even pay them to get answers. That's not true anymore with Siri AI. Curiosity shouldn't require six tabs and clicking on 17 cookie banners. You should be able to just ask, and now you can right to your iPhone.

Some of you may still feel skeptical. That's entirely understandable. Up until Siri AI, Siri's best use was as a kitchen timer, but it seems your kitchen timer has been reading up. The fact that my wife is using it says a lot to me because, until recently, Siri in my house was nothing but the butt of jokes.

Does this mean that you can now use Siri AI to replace the most advanced artificial intelligence subroutines? Absolutely not. People are doing some crazy things in the Robot Builders Club, and Siri isn't there yet. But when it comes to world knowledge, Siri AI checks the box, and it does so without charging you a fee or compromising your privacy.

The next time you need to check a date, figure out when a store is open, or find out why the leaves on your Japanese maple are suddenly turning brown, just ask Siri. It'll give you an answer and, most of the time, give you a source. The Gemini-powered Siri AI will quickly and efficiently answer your questions, and now, with it on your phone, your watch, your iPad, and your Mac, you can get those answers easily and anywhere.

Your pal, David

This Week in the MacSparky-Verse

Here's what ran at MacSparky.com this week.

• ​Cotypist 2026.4 Syncs Your Writing Between Macs brought writing-history sync to one of my favorite uses for AI.
• On Intentional AI 10, Cal Newport joined Chris and me to talk about automating tedious work without handing over our thinking.
• On Focused 266: The Ultimate Shiny New Object, Mike and I looked at how tinkering with AI could become a distraction that felt like work.
• ​Hookmark 7.3 Improves Link Cleanup and App Integrations improved a Mac utility that connected related work across apps and cleaned the junk out of web links.
• ​The Alfred 6 Preview gave us a first look at a big redesign of the Mac launcher.
• In On the Rumored M8 Ultra AI Servers, I made the case for Apple hardware that let organizations keep AI work under their own control.
• On Mac Power Users 869, Stephen and I tested Siri AI on everyday tasks and discussed my move to a Mac mini.

In the MacSparky Labs, we covered a lot:

• I posted the browser Jam Session recording and the Q4 planning replay as a video and podcast.
• I wrote posts on a short Q4 reset and my keyboard indecision.
• I made videos on local transcription with MacWhisper and the folding Airmarz keyboard.
• We got together for our October meetup, and I announced Meditations for Mortals as our book-club pick.
• I published The Lab Report podcast on Apple's rumored home-hardware event and what would make a touchscreen Mac useful.

Next week, we're getting together for a live session on local and private AI on a Mac.

That was a single week, and the Labs run like this every week. If that sounds like your kind of place, come join us.

Upgrade your Calendar with Fantastical and Siri AI

This newsletter is sponsored by Fantastical.

A lot of events show up as pictures. A screenshot of a school flyer, a photo of a conference schedule, an invitation somebody texted you. Getting those onto a calendar usually means squinting at the image and typing it all back in.

​Fantastical can now create events straight from images. Hand it the screenshot, and it pulls out the event for you. The latest Mac update brings that to the mini window in the menu bar, so you can capture an event without opening the full app.

It's the same idea that made Fantastical's natural language input so good. You describe the event however it comes to you, and Fantastical does the typing. Now that includes a picture. And since version 4.2, the new Siri works with your Fantastical calendars too, so asking what Thursday looks like pulls from the calendars you already keep there.

If you'd rather spend less time transcribing your schedule, take a look at Fantastical.