Apple has just announced the next version of iOS, unsurprisingly called iOS 9. With the latest version :-/ of its mobile platform, Apple is focusing on making it smarter and more powerful, starting with a major upgrade to the Siri virtual assistant. Siri now has a feature called Proactive that can offer app suggestions and more based on context such as time of day or location. It's a lot like Google Now, Google's version of the virtual assistant, telling you how far away your next appointment is based on traffic or starting music when you plug headphones into your phone. Proactive lets Siri see what apps you have on your phone and suggest useful ones based on what you're trying to do. Apple says that Siri can also look into your inbox to ID incoming calls that aren't in your address book. All of this is wrapped into a new user interface for Spotlight that appears when you swipe down on a home screen in iOS. iOS 9 also introduces deep linking within Spotlight searches, letting you access content within apps whenever you do a system-wide search, instead of just opening the app's main page. Spotlight also can do unit conversions without opening a web search, something that Siri has done for a while, but now queries can be typed in addition to spoken. Apple says that all of this new intelligent processing happens on the phone itself, meaning your data isn't being sent to a server in the cloud. It's a different stance than Google or Microsoft take, which leverage cloud processing to power their virtual assistants on Android and Windows Phone. Apple will first release iOS 9 to registered developers today, followed by a public beta in July. It will be available as a final release this fall and is compatible with devices as old as the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 from 2011.