Siri Finally Learns How To Launch Apps, Lands On The iPad

Just moments after Apple officially pulled back the curtains on iOS 6, Apple’s Scott Forstall announced a slew of compelling new updates to Siri, their mobile intelligent assistant.

First up, Siri is much smarter than she used to be — she can now easily pull up detailed sports information for one and, thanks to a new partnership with Yelp and Foursquare, she’s become much savvier with restaurants as well. That’s all well and good (especially for all you gourmands), but the big thing here is that users can now launch apps when asked. Forestall demonstrated this on-stage by commanding her to launch Temple Run, and it worked like like a charm.

Apple has also partnered up with a handful of car manufacturers to deliver what they call “Eyes Free” functionality, which will see a a physical button integrated into forthcoming cars that will bring up Siri on a connected device when pushed. No word yet on exactly when the first Eyes Free cars will roll off the assembly line, but Apple says it should be within the next 12 months.

Also part of the substantial new update is support for a handful for a handful of new languages, including Italian, Korea, Mandarin (for Taiwan), and Cantonese.

With all these updates in tow, it’s a good thing that iPhone 4S users won’t be the only people who get to talk to Siri — Apple is bringing Siri to the new iPad.