Apple's 'Assistant' Seen as Key Feature for New iPhone Hardware: Assistant will also reportedly integrate a conversational aspect in which the system can ask the user questions to clarify and refine its understanding of what is being requested.
The system will actually speak back and forth with the user to gain the most information in order to provide the best results. The user essentially can hold a conversation with their iPhone like it is another human being.
Assistant is also said to integrate with WolframAlpha, allowing users to obtain answers to factual questions using the service's computational capabilities.
The report notes that the sophisticated voice features will require the new iPhone hardware from Apple, relying on the company's A5 system-on-a-chip and a bump in RAM to 1 GB to support the heavy workload.