iOS 9 new features detailed: Changes to Siri, advanced search, Apple Pay and more

Rik Henderson | 8 June 2015

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Apple has, as expected, announced iOS 9 and some of the features that will be coming with the new iPhone and iPad operating system to be available later this year.

Siri, for example, will have an all-new user interface and will interact with your iPhone in a more in-depth way than ever before. It will also take on features that are more like Microsoft's Cortana, with pro-active features and suggestions based on your phone's location.

Search functionality is improved dramatically too, with Apple's new search able to use a vast collection of different sites and services to find different contextual results.

Siri has also been closely merged with search, so you can ask it to search for something and the new engine will find the best results based on your request. It will also intuitively find content wherever it might have been saved - including on the phone itself or a social network. And the personal assistant learns as it grows.

It will understand the sort of things you like to do and the locations and times you like to do them. It will then pull them up as notifications at the relevant time or in the right location.

Apple is keen to suggest that the new search and Siri services are secure and no details are stored in the cloud. Instead, all intelligent services are stored on your device alone, with no data mining taking place by Apple whatsoever. Nor does it share your search results or interaction with any third-parties.

Also secure is Apple Pay, which is coming to the UK in July. And not only will it store credit cards, it has been extended to include store cards too. Plus, the Passbook app has been renamed Wallet as it now stores more than just vouchers and boarding passes.

The company is yet to reveal when the full iOS 9 release will be available but we suspect it will formerly launch when the next iPhone is released - currently rumoured for September, like usual. However, the company will make a public beta version available from July for you to try ahead of time.