Voice-recognition capabilities on the iPhone enable a user to play music and call contacts using speech commands. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Apple’s next-generation mobile operating system may include a more powerful voice recognition system, putting to use the company’s recent acquisition of an artificial-intelligence startup.

Apple on Monday said it would announce details on the future of iOS, the software powering the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Expanded voice recognition features will be a highlight of the new operating system, claims TechCrunch’s MG Siegler.

The new voice system would take advantage of technologies developed by Siri, an artificial-intelligence company that Apple acquired April 2010, Siegler claims. Before Siri was acquired by Apple, it released an iPhone app that acted as a personal assistant. Dictating a command such as “I’d like a table for four at Nopa restaurant” would prompt Siri to reserve a table through the OpenTable online-booking service.

Deeper voice recognition in iOS would be a plausible next step for Apple. The touchscreen interface was already a giant leap forward for making user interface more approachable, and an expanded voice recognition system that controls core aspects of the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch would make Apple’s mobile products even more user friendly for customers.

I can imagine less tech-savvy customers picking up an iPad and saying something like “Download Angry Birds,” which would initiate the download after you verify the purchase. Some other casual use examples would be “Search World War II on Wikipedia,” or “What’s the weather like next week in San Francisco?”

An improved voice-recognition system would also be extremely useful for an often-neglected audience: customers with visual impairments. The National Federation of the Blind previously applauded Apple for its VoiceOver system in iOS, a computer voice that reads back any text that you touch with your finger.

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