Apple's Delayed Personalized Siri Features Are 'Working' to Some Extent

[MacRumors]

Apple has not confirmed if its delayed personalized Siri features were anything more than conceptual when they were announced during the WWDC 2024 keynote last year, but they reportedly exist internally in at least a semi-usable way by now.

Apple's senior director of Siri, Robby Walker, demonstrated at least some of the personalized Siri features in a "working" state during a recent all-hands meeting with the Siri team, according to a report yesterday from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman:

He showed examples during the meeting of the technology working: It was able to locate his driver's license number on command and find specific photos of a child. He also demonstrated how the technology could precisely manipulate apps via voice control. It embedded content in an email, added recipients and made other changes.

The above paragraph in the report was highlighted by Daring Fireball's John Gruber.

While it may sound obvious that at least some of the features are now functional within Apple, this was not entirely clear, as the company has not shown any public demos of the features being in a working state. Apple now faces the task of ensuring that the features not only work, but work well, before making them available to customers. Walker reportedly said the features were only working "up to two-thirds to 80% of the time."

Apple said it anticipates rolling out the personalized Siri features "in the coming year," but it did not provide a more specific timeframe.

Whenever they launch, the Siri upgrades will include understanding of a user's personal context, on-screen awareness, and deeper per-app controls. For example, during its WWDC 2024 keynote, Apple showed an iPhone user asking Siri about their mother's flight and lunch reservation plans based on info from the Mail and Messages apps.

Apple added fine print to its iPhone 16 product pages that says the features are "in development":

Siri's personal context understanding, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions are in development and will be available with a future software update.

Gurman said the features currently "aren't expected until next year at the earliest," and recent reports from Reuters and CNBC have also mentioned a 2026 timeframe. If so, that means the Siri upgrades are unlikely to launch until iOS 19.4 or later.

Article Link: Apple's Delayed Personalized Siri Features Are 'Working' to Some Extent

 

[I7guy]

Well Apple did say iOS 19. Just not which release.

 

[JonathanParker]

I remember when features announced in WWDC made it into the day 1 release in September, because they used to do actual demos, not show off vaporware and concept videos.

 

[Robert.Walter]

What compensation will Apple provide to those of us who upgraded a serviceable older iPhone to gain this iOS 18 AI capability?

This delay seems like bait and switch.

 

[twolf2919]

Well Apple did say iOS 19. Just not which release.

Actually, no, Apple said iOS 18. And only recently switched it to iOS 19 when it became obvious that it was in too woeful a state to make it into 18.

 

[dannyyankou]

It just works It just works to some extent

 

[1applerules1]

What compensation will Apple provide to those of us who upgraded a serviceable older iPhone to gain this iOS 18 AI capability?

This delay seems like bait and switch.

You buy products based on promised future updates?
That’s a you problem.

 

[I7guy]

Actually, no, Apple said iOS 18. And only recently switched it to iOS 19 when it became obvious that it was in too woeful a state to make it into 18.

Correct. After Apple revaluated they announced delivery in iOS 19.

 

[SodaFountain]

What compensation will Apple provide to those of us who upgraded a serviceable older iPhone to gain this iOS 18 AI capability?

This delay seems like bait and switch.

It was indeed a bait n switch. False advertising as well.
Apple needs to issue an apology.

Also, something else nobody seems willing to mention, but I’ll say it:
Productivity of a team is not fully realized when they’re working from home. I understand that Apple utilizes a hybrid WFH model. But these types of shortcomings will continue to happen until they bring everyone back to fully in-person work.
I know I’ll catch a lot of disagreement for this, but it’s the truth.

 

[twolf2919]

Quoting Daring Fireball without mentioning that Gruber's point was Apple's betrayal of its customers by showing what was *obviously* only a conceptual video at WWDC - yet still advertising it as coming in iOS18 to those who upgrade to an AI-ready new iPhone. So Apple essentially sold iPhones based an illusion. Pretty darn close to false advertising if you ask me.

 

[jz0309]

All iPhones that support Apple Inyelligence continue to work “as is” and do not require HW changes. A SW features was announced to be available “later”, now that “later” is even later.
Too much fuzz about this…

 

[AusMness]

Have anyone else been noticing on 18.4/15.4 beta that Siri’s automatic suggestions are slowly tuning themselves towards third party apps and/or more precise actions?

Oh, wait no that’s right, half of you have Apple intelligence turned off.

What did I tell ya?

 

[User 6502]

I remember when features announced in WWDC made it into the day 1 release in September, because they used to do actual demos, not show off vaporware and concept videos.

Yes this pre-recorded keynotes have to stop. We want live keynotes with real demo once again. Lockdowns are over, no need for this prerecorded crap.

 

[chas_m]

The wording by Apple seems to indicate that the updates will happen sometime between April 2025 and March 2026, i.e. "in the coming year" which could also be rephrased as "in the coming 12 months."

I think it likely that Apple Intelligence (as a suite of features) will continue to improve across 2025, particularly with a view to the fall of 2025 when developers who get iOS 19 et al from WWDC have had a few months to work with it, as it has been implied that iOS 19 et al will be a big design change across the board.

Traditionally, we should expect iOS 19 (et al) in the fall of this year. As I7Guy says, it make take till 19.1 or 19.2 (or later updates) to get 100 percent of everything we were originally promised in the AI overhaul -- but that still gives the entire suite a decent shot at being substantially out before year's end, or at least by the updates in early 2026.

In my opinion, this may actually work out quite well. Excluding us bleeding-edge types, MOST consumers will take months (minimum) to incorporate even the stuff that's out now -- like Writing Tools, which works very well in point of fact -- into their daily workflow. Millions more aren't running anything that would even be able to run iOS 18 or 19 yet, and won't for some time to come. I have an iPhone that can run Apple Intelligence, but not a Mac or iPad that can -- though that will probably change by the end of the year.

On top of that, the features we've been promised from Apple Intelligence are just the first set -- there's lots more to follow on after that, spanning the next decade at least I should think.

Call me Ollie Optimistic if you want, but a piecemeal/evolutionary rollout of what will end up being the core of all future Apple OS releases may actually turn out to be a good thing not a bad thing for the majority of Apple product users.

 

[smulji]

Correct. After Apple revaluated they announced delivery in iOS 19.

They didn't reevaluate. They got caught with their pants down for advertising and showcasing a non-functional feature (AKA vaporware). Shameful

 

[chas_m]

What compensation will Apple provide to those of us who upgraded a serviceable older iPhone to gain this iOS 18 AI capability?

This delay seems like bait and switch.

Good luck with that lawsuit, chum.

 

[citysnaps]

What compensation will Apple provide to those of us who upgraded a serviceable older iPhone to gain this iOS 18 AI capability?

This delay seems like bait and switch.

From reading the comments here, nobody wants Apple AI on their iPhone - people have said that over and over again, over the last couple of months, very forcefully. And will be immediately turning it off should it pop up automatically in a future iOS update.

No compensation is necessary.

 

[anthogag]

Yeah baby! It’s coming! The huge iOS19 upgrade + Intelligence is within reach 🫳🏻👈🏻

 

[klasma]

It seems slightly weird that such a demonstration would be necessary in a meeting of the Siri team. Shouldn’t they more or less know their progress? Or maybe they are compartmentalized into a dozen separate subteams who aren’t allowed to speak to each other.

 

[bmark]

Robby Walker and the head of Siri are incompetent! Yet Tim Cook keeps them employed.

 

[klasma]

Actually, no, Apple said iOS 18. And only recently switched it to iOS 19 when it became obvious that it was in too woeful a state to make it into 18.

It’s actually a bit worse. From the Bloomberg article: `Walker also raised doubts about even meeting the current release expectations. Though Apple is aiming for iOS 19, it “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then,” Walker said.’

And from last week’s article: `For iOS 19, Apple’s plan is to merge both systems together and roll out a new Siri architecture. I expect this to be introduced as early as Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June of this year — with a launch by spring 2026 as part of iOS 19.4. The new system, dubbed “LLM Siri” internally, was supposed to also introduce a more conversational approach in the same release. But that is now running behind as well and won’t be unveiled in June.’

I wouldn’t be surprised if it slips to iOS 20.

 

[klasma]

You buy products based on promised future updates?
That’s a you problem.

That’s an interesting concept of what “promise” means.

 

[Alwaysfindsaway]

I’m still not really sure why this is even needed or why I should care. Why would I be using Siri to do everything in apps with my voice when I will just end up using my fingers anyway. I can ask Siri to do stuff now and it absolutely sucks at everything so I don’t bother. This is NOT going to be any different…

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Damage control.

TC’s Apple TV plug didn’t work.

Controlled leak that Siri isn’t so bad after all.

And we’re gonna love it.

 

[JPack]

AirPower was also working to some extent.

If it’s working well, then they wouldn’t need to start over and rewrite entire pieces of code according to Bloomberg reports.