New Siri Delayed Again as Apple Preps Broader AI Changes for iOS 27

Apple’s high-stakes Siri revamp is reportedly running late… again.

For anyone keeping track since the grand reveal in June 2024, the “new era” of Siri feels like it’s been perpetually just around the corner. We were initially looking at a March release with iOS 26.4, but according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is hitting the brakes.

According to Gurman, Apple’s “long-planned upgrade to the Siri virtual assistant has run into snags during testing in recent weeks,” creating uncertainty around its rollout timeline.

Gurman reports that Apple is now planning to “spread them out over future versions,” which means we might not see the full suite of features until iOS 26.5 in May, or even iOS 27 this September. Bloomberg notes that “Siri doesn’t always properly process queries or can take too long to handle requests,” citing people familiar with the matter. 

The situation remains fluid, and Apple’s plans could change again.

The redesigned Siri is built on a new architecture called Linwood and powered by Apple’s large language model platform, Apple Foundation Models. In January, Apple confirmed that Google’s Gemini models would help power the upgraded assistant. Despite that partnership, Bloomberg reports that internal versions of the software were, at times, so sluggish that developers believed a delay of several months would be necessary.

More AI changes coming in iOS 27

Even as the current rollout faces hurdles, Apple is continuing work on a broader AI overhaul planned for iOS 27.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is developing a more chatbot-like version of Siri for that release, one designed to compete more directly with tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. The system is expected to run on Google servers and use a more advanced custom Gemini model.

At a recent all-hands meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at the company’s longer-term AI ambitions.

“Apple silicon is enabling us to build data center solutions that are tailor-made for our devices,” Cook said. “I will say that, going forward, the work we’re doing is going to enable an entirely new class of products and services.” 

During the same meeting, Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi emphasized that the company is unwilling to compromise on user data.

“We think it’s super important that when a model takes a question from you, that data is kept private,” Federighi said, according to Bloomberg. He added that the “standard in the industry is to send that data to a server where it is logged, exposed to the company and used for training.”

Apple is instead trying to keep processing either on-device or on privacy-focused servers. 

Optics and expectations

The repeated delays are not ideal for Apple, especially as rivals push ahead in generative AI. 

Even as recently as last month, Apple was still aiming to introduce the new Siri this spring. Users can still expect iOS 26.4 to arrive next month for now. But instead of the full Siri transformation Apple previewed nearly two years ago, the update may deliver only part of the vision with the rest arriving in stages over the coming months.

For more on Apple’s expanding AI vision, read how Tim Cook is betting on Visual Intelligence to power the next wave of Apple Intelligence features.

The post New Siri Delayed Again as Apple Preps Broader AI Changes for iOS 27 appeared first on eWEEK.