This is not good for Apple. You probably remember that Apple has long been advertising a version of Siri that serves as a smart, intuitive, automated personal assistant in your pocket. Apple even made an ad about it with Bella Ramsey, releasing in late 2024:
But that ad had to be removed because Apple couldn’t ship the real-life version depicted in it. Asking Siri questions as if she were a chatbot and then getting good answers from your information across multiple apps is a task that definitely 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 believed to need a win in the AI space after lagging far behind Google in getting AI right. The new, as-yet-unreleased, AI model driving Siri is essentially rented from Google for $1 billion a year. And who knows, maybe Google’s model is to blame behind the latest problems with Siri, but it’s hard to imagine consumers blaming Google if Apple can’t execute a solid new Siri product.
Gurman’s sources told him that tests of the new Siri showed that it processed queries incorrectly, and sometimes took “too long” – too long for what? We don’t know, but it’s clearly slow. Gurman points to the Bella Ramsey ad feature in which AI answers from your personal data, and asks “What was that Greek restaurant Larry told me to try?” Answers questions like. Because it is likely to be delayed after iOS 26.4.
If it is iOS 26.5 that eventually gets the Bella Ramsey version of Siri, and the user interface is ultimately designed like the working version of the operating system that Apple employees are using to test, Gurman says there may be an optional toggle allowing the user to “preview” that new Siri version, meaning it will be designed like something the user can try at their own risk.
So apparently, these Siri features are not being canceled or eliminated, but rather delayed. Apple will release some sort of partial Siri update with iOS 26.4 in March, Gurman says, and then the rest of the new Siri features will be sprinkled into the 26.5 update in May, and the bigger update to iOS 27 in September, when the iPhone 18 line is scheduled to roll out. However this “remains an untenable situation, and Apple’s plans may change further,” Gurman writes.
Apparently, according to Gurman, another delayed feature will be Siri-based voice control for “App Intents,” a new framework for controlling apps, which Apple says will “play an increasingly important role within Apple’s developer platforms.” The developers may not be saddened by this delay, who, judging from the X post, don’t seem very eager to learn how to use it.
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