Apple has recently delayed all of its major AI-focused Siri upgrades to next year. The company revealed last week that the majority of its plans, which were originally announced during WWDC last year for iOS 18, won’t make it to iOS 18 or even maybe iOS 19. It is quite a harsh reality to accept, but Apple has simply fallen behind with AI and is struggling to cope under pressure.
The company is quite aware of its current reputation, and the latest delay has been quite a setback for its software. So much so that an internal meeting which took place at Apple has leaked online and revealed the “ugly” situation the company is in.
Bloomberg reports that the Siri team at Apple is feeling burnt out and frustrated over the decisions that Apple has made regarding AI. The team is frustrated by Apple’s decisions, which have ultimately led to a bad reputation for Siri. The report claims that Apple doesn’t really have a grasp on what it wants to achieve for the assistant and how it plans to integrate AI into the platform. Most of the features are still not working “half of the time”.
Software head Robby Walker, who has overseen the department, called the delay “ugly” and says that Apple’s iOS 19 target for the new features is just a “target” and doesn’t mean the software changes will happen. He says the team has other committed across other projects at Apple, and the goal is to keep those commitments to ensure other features don’t get delayed.
Another major issue at the company right now is the internal conflict between the Siri unit and marketing division. Walker claims that the communications team wanted to highlight the features that Siri would be getting in the software update; however, these features were nowhere ready.
These were features that Apple debuted at WWDC. Features that were meant to arrive as a selling point for iPhone 16 products, which have now been indefinitely delayed. Apple has even gone as far as to delist marketing campaigns, edit website pages, and remove YouTube videos where these features are showcased. Many of the previous announcements now have disclaimers on them with TBD text.
Walker says that despite harsh criticism from Apple owners, media, and the general public, the team is determined to get these features working as intended. He has also praised the team for the hard work.
“Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri. We’re going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready. These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse.”
Apple will seemingly release these new Siri AI features sometime in the future. Features that were announced on the iPhone 15 and marketed for the iPhone 16, but will likely be released for the iPhone 17.
Source: Bloomberg
