When it comes to aiding someone who is emotionally driven to kill him or herself, the right response can literally be a matter of life and death. In order to help those in crisis, Apple has updated Siri’s search response system to field suicide-related requests with an approach designed to drive users to seek help as quickly as possible. With an update to phones running iOS 6 and iOS 7, Siri now reacts with a strong, two-fold approach when mentions of suicide come up. First, the assistant offers the number of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and will even offer to call directly — a new feature that makes seeking help as simple as clicking “yes” on the phone. If for whatever reason the user decides to select “no”, Siri does a search of all local suicide prevention centers, offering a list and directions powered by Yelp.
