Table reservation site OpenTable and Siri ensure unexpected calendar entries and notifications on iPhone, iPad and Mac: If an Apple user calls one of the restaurants listed on OpenTable in the Safari browser, an entry for the said reservation appears immediately and Comes automatically. Calendar of iOS and macOS – even if no table reservation has been made. This also happens to website visitors who don’t have an OpenTable account, as readers have reported. Mac and I were able to reproduce the bug.
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Siri suggests appointments
Appointment suggestions for said reservations come from Siri: Long before Apple Intelligence, a “proactive” Siri system existed to assist the user and automatically submit appointment entries to the calendar. For example, events based on hotel bookings are simply recorded as suggestions, but they already appear in Apple Calendar and trigger further so-called Siri suggestions.
This is followed by several key notifications on the iPhone lock screen: for example, Siri suggests activating Do Not Disturb mode for appointments and gives recommendations for leaving on time. For users, unwanted information is irritating and difficult to understand. This phenomenon is especially troubling when another family member accesses the OpenTable page on a shared device – and thus triggers the appointment entry.
Siri should know more about apps with Apple Intelligence
Siri can look at apps for suggestions, which is enabled by default. The Help system primarily sees entries from Apple apps like Safari and Mail, but third-party apps like Booking are also supported – for example, hotel bookings are automatically ended in Calendar. However, the OpenTable bug highlights how unstable such AI assistance functions are and how prone to user confusion they are.
Apple is currently busy bringing Siri to a new AI level: the assistance system should better capture data in future apps and screen content and eventually become more powerful. Third-party apps have to be adapted and Apple has to expand its interface. The context-sensitive Siri system is expected to arrive with iOS 18.4 in spring 2025. An entirely new Siri based on the language model doesn’t appear to be in the works until 2026.
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