Apple CEO Tim Cook. (Photo: Apple)

Apples Worldwide Developer Conference starts Monday in San Jose. Here are a few of the areas well be watching closely.

Siri Speaker: Will Apple challenge AmazonsEcho?The possibility of a Siri Speaker is one of the biggest rumors coming into the event. The general consensus is that Apple needs to expand its virtual assistant into this growing area, possibly with the help of its Beats brand andtechnology.

Apple would be challenging not just Amazon but also Google, with its Google Home line of smart speakers. Google made an interesting move of its own last month, expanding its Google Assistant to iPhone.

One question is whether Apples speaker would have a screen, possibly along the lines of thenew Amazon Echo Show. Given the number of times that Siri currently returns web results in response to inquiries on iOS, a screen might be critical unless the virtual assistant is getting a major upgrade.

Which leads to our next big area of interest

Artificial Intelligence: We heardhints of Apples ambitions in AI from Carlos Guestrin, Apple director of machine learning, in an interview in February. He said the key to creating an emotional connection between user and device is the intelligence that it has how much it understands me, how much it can predict what I need and what I want, and how valuable it is at being a companion to me. AI is going to be at the core of that.

Hear GeekWire's Todd Bishop discuss this story Monday in the noon hour on The Record on KUOW, 94.9 FM in the Seattle region, andkuow.org.Guestrinis the University of Washington computer science professor who joined Apple with his team following the tech giantsacquisition of their machine learning startup Turi last year. Apple has established an engineering center in Seattle focused in part on machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has talked about the importance of expanding artificial intelligence and machine learning across the companys products. Some subtle examples of machine learninginclude facial recognition in the iOS Photos appand the ability to automatically identify where someone parks a car in Apple Maps.

At WWDC, chances are that new AI features would come as part of iOS 11, which is expected to be unveiled at the event. Bloomberg News reports that Apple is alsoworking on a chip to power artificial intelligence in its devices.

New Hardware: This isnt the event where Apple typically shows the next iPhone, but you never know.

More widely expected at WWDC is a 10.5-inch iPad Pro, fitting in between the current 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch models, with upgraded specs and hardware. Although tablet sales have been declining overall, itsa competitive market: Microsoft, for one,recently unveiled its new Surface Pro.

Ona personal note, Im looking forward to seeing if the rumors of a refreshedMacBook Pro are true. My currentMacBook Pro is on its last legs, and myonly question is whether to chooseanew model or take advantage of what will likely be lower prices on last years MacBook Pros. Or, as a total wild card, maybe Illwait forthe new Surface Laptopto come out from Microsoft in a couple weeks.

Watch the Apple WWDC keynote at 10 a.m. Pacific time Monday morning, and follow GeekWire for coverage. Also subscribe to our Geared Up podcast and live video show for highlights and commentary.

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Apple WWDC: Siri Speaker, iPad Pro, artificial intelligence and more rumors on our radar - GeekWire