Mark Gurman, Bloomberg’s Apple scoops guy, says the development of the latest version of Siri is not looking good in tests. It’s apparently going badly enough that Apple will release only a partial version when the updated voice assistant debuts in the next version of iOS. To be clear, the iOS 26.4 update is still expected to arrive next month, and it’s still expected to have a new version of Siri, but it may be a bit of a letdown.
That’s not good for Apple. Perhaps you’ll recall that Apple has been advertising a version of Siri that works as a smart, seamless, automated personal assistant in your pocket for a long time. Apple even made a commercial about this with Bella Ramsey released in fall of 2024:
But that ad had to be pulled because Apple couldn’t ship a real-life version of what it depicted. Asking Siri questions as if it’s a chatbot and then getting good answers drawn from your information across multiple apps is a function that certainly feels possible based on existing technology. But it’s now 2026 and Apple still hasn’t released that version of Siri.
And as I wrote late last month, Apple is perceived as needing to notch a win in the AI area after falling way behind Google in AI authority. The AI model driving the new, still unreleased, Siri is essentially rented from Google for $1 billion per year. And who knows, perhaps Google’s model is the culprit behind the latest problems with Siri, but it’s hard to picture consumers blaming Google if Apple can’t execute a solid new Siri product.
Gurman’s sources tell him tests of the new Siri found that it processes queries incorrectly, and that it sometimes takes “too long”—too long for what? We don’t get to know, but it’s clearly slow. Gurman points to the feature from the Bella Ramsey ad in which the AI mines answers from your personal data, and answers questions like “What was that Greek restaurant Larry told me to try?” as one likely to be delayed past iOS 26.4.
If it’s iOS 26.5 that eventually gets the Bella Ramsey version of Siri, and the user interface ends up being designed like the working version of that operating system that Apple employees are using to perform tests, Gurman says there may be an optional toggle allowing the user to “preview” that new Siri version, meaning it’ll be framed as something that the user can try at their own peril.
So ostensibly, these Siri features aren’t being cancelled or eliminated, but delayed. Apple will, Gurman says, release some sort of partial Siri update in March with iOS 26.4, and then the rest of the new Siri features will be sprinkled into the 26.5 update in May, and the larger update to iOS 27 in September, when the iPhone 18 line is scheduled to roll out. Though this “remains a fluid situation, and Apple’s plans may change further,” Gurman writes.
Apparently, according to Gurman, another delayed feature will be Siri-based voice controls for “App Intents,” a new framework for controlling apps that Apple says will perform an “increasingly critical role within Apple’s developer platforms.” This delay may not be grieved by developers, who, judging from X posts, don’t seem super eager to figure out how to use it.
Source: gizmodo.com
