Apple's 'Proactive' to Take on Google Now, Augmented Reality Maps, and Other iOS 9 Rumours

Serial Apple news-breaker Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac has published a wealth of details about a set of new iOS features codenamed Proactive that represent massive changes to the core OS and the way devices handle Web searches, reminders, alerts, and personal information. The features are reportedly being baked in to the core of iOS but, but the full extent of the initiative might roll out gradually with only a few active when iOS 9 launches later this year.

The most obvious reason for Proactive to be developed is Google Now, which tracks a user's habits and makes timely suggestions about travel and can identify contextual links between bits of a user's information such as emails, addresses, calendar appointments and contacts. However Apple will apparently be focusing on privacy and safeguarding potentially sensitive information right from the outset and could use this as a marketing point against Google.

Gurman has reported that Proactive will be similar in that it will offer alerts and reminders to users based on such information as well as current weather and traffic conditions as well as habitual actions that it learns to recognise over time. However, Proactive will also be heavily integrated with Siri voice commands, Spotlight search, and presumably the Apple Watch.

Proactive will have a dedicated interface but rather than replacing Siri outright, it will displace Spotlight search. Gurman notes that Apple is considering going back to a panel to the left of the first Springboard screen rather than the iOS 7-style pull-down menu which is less easy to discover. This will also encourage users to search through the iOS interface rather than launching Safari or any third-party app, which will help prevent searches from being routed through Google.

The interface will also reportedly incorporate "bubbles" and alerts in the Notification Centre which will draw contextual relationships between bits of information in different silos - the example being a boarding pass stored in Passbook that matches a flight number listed in a Calendar appointment. Proactive would not only bring those up and remind the user when it's time to leave, display public transport routes, and also show the estimated arrival time based on current traffic.

Other contextual cues will be learnt from user behaviour. Proactive will apparently surface information within apps and shortcuts based on a user's patterns at different times of day and in different locations. Deeper integration with Maps could also leverage a new Browse Around Me feature showing information about nearby restaurants, points of interest and even offers. While relevant results could be displayed as a simple list, a more elaborate autmented reality view is also reportedly in the works, but might not be ready in time for the iOS 9 rollout. Gurman says that plans to highlight businesses that support Apple Pay were considered but dropped, at least for the upcoming iOS 9 release timeframe.

As for control, Proactive would integrate with Siri but could also leverage new capabilities that Apple is working on to allow Siri to index information from third-party apps. Apple could announce an API codenamed Breadcrumbs and a list of apps that are already on board. Breadcrumbs would include controls designed to limit the exposure of personal or sensitive information within apps to Siri and thus also to Proactive.

The news comes shortly before Apple is due to unveil iOS 9 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Features already rumoured or confirmed include a new keyboard, improvements to iMessage, a new streaming music service born out of the acquisition of Beats, split-screen multitasking for iPads, and a strong emphasis on stability, including performance improvements for the iPhone 4S and iPad mini.