SheldonWangRJT · March 18, 2018 00:09
diff --git a/iOS - What does SiriKit do? How to use it in our app? b/iOS - What does SiriKit do? How to use it in our app?
 #iOSBySheldon
 As Siri became more and more popular, people won't be satisfied to only use Siri in the iOS system level, instead, it will be much better if we can use Siri with apps that are not  only from Apple. In WWDC 2016, Apple finally opened SiriKit to the developers. Time flies, it is almost two years past. I do believe in this year's WWDC 2018, Apple will give a big enhancement on the SiriKit. One of the bigger reason might be the release of the HomePod.

 In this post, I don't want to show you any code, but I do want to explain to you guys what does SiriKit do and the basics of SiriKit.Same as Alex for Amazon and "OK Google", SiriKit uses a technique called Natural Language Processing. 

 If you check the link from WikiPedia, you will be find the following definition:"Natural-language processing (NLP) is an area of computer science and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages, in particular how to program computers to fruitfully process large amounts of natural language data."OK, to sumarize the paragraph, NLP is just an algorithm to make the communication between human and machine possible. And what SiriKit do is to process whatever you said into a intent.

 I believe "intent" is the regular used term not only for Siri but also for Alexa and Google. As if today, SiriKit has the following available intents.

 Lists - Create reminders, update a todo list
 Messaging - Send messages
 VoIP Calling - Make video / audio calls
 Visual Codes - Display your QR code
 Photo Search - Search photos with content types
 Workouts - Start, pause workouts
 Ride Booking - Book rides on taxi-like apps
 Payments - Make payments to other persons or pay cards
 Climate and Radio - CarPlay related climate and radio control

 How do we make this work in our app?

 When we integrate SiriKit in our app, we are building an Application Extension. Basically, we are extending iOS system Siri to be able to handle some voice commands for our app. You can treat the Extension is more like a part of system Siri than a part of our app.

 Taking Make-Payment Intent as an example, (I have already made a video tutorial on this, please feel free to check it out here in Youtube), we need to create an intent class to handle few key information.
 1. which app user wants to use to do the payments?
 2. which card user wants to pay from?
 3. how much user want to pay?
 4. whom user wants to pay to?

 Once all the info are collected you can trigger next step, maybe Touch ID auth to trigger the transaction.Again, please feel free to check my video tutorial here in Youtube, and the finished project is here in Github.

 References:
 Shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-language_processing
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWQhmcXm_sI
 https://github.com/SheldonWangRJT/iOS-SiriKit-Demo
 https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/214/
 https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/228/ 
 https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/217/
 https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/225/
	#iOSBySheldon
	As Siri became more and more popular, people won't be satisfied to only use Siri in the iOS system level, instead, it will be much better if we can use Siri with apps that are not only from Apple. In WWDC 2016, Apple finally opened SiriKit to the developers. Time flies, it is almost two years past. I do believe in this year's WWDC 2018, Apple will give a big enhancement on the SiriKit. One of the bigger reason might be the release of the HomePod.

	In this post, I don't want to show you any code, but I do want to explain to you guys what does SiriKit do and the basics of SiriKit.Same as Alex for Amazon and "OK Google", SiriKit uses a technique called Natural Language Processing.

	If you check the link from WikiPedia, you will be find the following definition:"Natural-language processing (NLP) is an area of computer science and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages, in particular how to program computers to fruitfully process large amounts of natural language data."OK, to sumarize the paragraph, NLP is just an algorithm to make the communication between human and machine possible. And what SiriKit do is to process whatever you said into a intent.

	I believe "intent" is the regular used term not only for Siri but also for Alexa and Google. As if today, SiriKit has the following available intents.

	Lists - Create reminders, update a todo list
	Messaging - Send messages
	VoIP Calling - Make video / audio calls
	Visual Codes - Display your QR code
	Photo Search - Search photos with content types
	Workouts - Start, pause workouts
	Ride Booking - Book rides on taxi-like apps
	Payments - Make payments to other persons or pay cards
	Climate and Radio - CarPlay related climate and radio control

	How do we make this work in our app?

	When we integrate SiriKit in our app, we are building an Application Extension. Basically, we are extending iOS system Siri to be able to handle some voice commands for our app. You can treat the Extension is more like a part of system Siri than a part of our app.

	Taking Make-Payment Intent as an example, (I have already made a video tutorial on this, please feel free to check it out here in Youtube), we need to create an intent class to handle few key information.
	1. which app user wants to use to do the payments?
	2. which card user wants to pay from?
	3. how much user want to pay?
	4. whom user wants to pay to?

	Once all the info are collected you can trigger next step, maybe Touch ID auth to trigger the transaction.Again, please feel free to check my video tutorial here in Youtube, and the finished project is here in Github.

	References:
	Shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-language_processing
	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWQhmcXm_sI
	https://github.com/SheldonWangRJT/iOS-SiriKit-Demo
	https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/214/
	https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/228/
	https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/217/
	https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/225/