• by Ben Frederick  @mp_benfred, July 5, 2016

Apple announced the release of its iOS 10 beta for developers this week. The first public beta is expected to be released sometime this month. The final versions of iOS 10 and Sierra should be available in September.

Updates include a revamp of Siri, as well as updates of the photos app, Apple Music, Apple Maps, HomeKit and the Phone app. Photos will now have facial recognition and the ability to categorize photos more intelligently.

Apple is also completely revamping its Messages app, which will put it on par with some of the other popular messaging apps, including Kik, Viber, Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Snapchat, Line, Kakao and We Chat.

A recent study from SimilarWeb shows that Americans spend more time in six of the top 10 messaging apps than any other demographic, making them the biggest global daily users. On average, a user in the US will spend 23 minutes and 23 seconds a day in a messaging app.

With updates that will allow third-party extensions, feedback, message effects and an emojify feature, Apple will be hoping to keep users on its own platform.

It will also bring the most popular features of the various other messaging apps to the general public and generations other than millennials.