iPhone 6s event: Siri dropping new hints ahead of Apple's big reveal

The hints are mostly useless, but Apple's focus on them might be suggestive about what's going on

Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers his keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California June 8, 2015 (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)

Apple’s Siri is dropping new hints ahead of the iPhone 6s event this week — though they’re mostly frustrating jokes.

The company’s invites teased the event with the tagline “Hey Siri, give us a hint”. Ever since then, excited fans have been asking the digital assistant for some idea of what might be going on — and having little look.

But Apple seems to be loading new hints into the digital assistant. While none of the updates actually say very much, they do at least offer new ways of being frustrated.

New hints include a long message in binary that spells out “gotcha”, as well as a joke about Siri’s own jokes: “Sorry. I missed the super secret keynote meeting because I was busy telling 3 million people why the chicken crossed the road”. (Siri’s penchant for jokes has been well noted, and is apparently the result of a team of people at Apple who are charged with building a personality into the digital assistant.)

The reference to Siri in the invitation doesn’t just seem to be a way of letting people ask the assistant to list off annoying hints. Apple is expected to reveal updates to the Apple TV — as well as the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus and iPad Pro — which is expected to rely heavily on the voice-controlled digital assistant as a way of navigating through menus and searching.

The new iPhone will also come with iOS 9, the operating system that improves Siri in an attempt to let him/her know what users want before they do. Apple is reportedly hiring artificial intelligence experts in an attempt to improve that capability.

For a full rundown of everything that's expected at the event — almost everything that Apple makes will be updated — see our round-up of all the rumours. And the reveal itself as well as the build-up is being reported on a liveblog.