Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
70,685
42,476


Apple is planning to upgrade Siri twice in the coming year, adding personalization features in iOS 26.4 before turning the personal assistant into a full chatbot in iOS 27.

Finder-Siri-Feature.jpg

As long as timelines don't change, we'll see the Siri chatbot as soon as June 2026. Here's everything we know so far.

SiriBot

With iOS 27, Apple will change the way that Siri works. Right now, Siri can answer basic questions and complete simple tasks, but you can't engage it in a back and forth conversation, get help with multi-step tasks, or ask complicated questions.

Based on the current Siri chatbot rumors, Siri will be able to do all of that and more with the upcoming upgrade, and it will work like competing chatbots.

Apple wasn't initially planning to introduce a full chatbot that users can interact with similarly to Claude or ChatGPT, but chatbots have become too popular for Apple to ignore. Simply adding AI capabilities to apps and features isn't enough for Apple to stay competitive with the way people have embraced chatbots for everything from web searches to coding help.

Google has already integrated Gemini into a range of Android devices, and chatbots like ChatGPT have hundreds of millions of weekly active users.

Siri Capabilities

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Siri's chatbot capabilities will be "embedded deeply" into Apple's products at the system level. Siri won't be an app, but will instead be integrated into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS like Siri is now.

Siri Activation and Interface

Users will activate Siri in the same way they do today, speaking the Siri wake word or pressing on the side button of a Siri-enabled device. Siri will be able to respond to both voice and text-based requests.

We don't yet know what the new Siri interface will look like. Apple will need to make big changes to the way that Siri looks and feels if it wants to match functionality offered by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

People are used to opening up an app and having a full text interface that includes conversation history, and it's not clear how Apple will provide that if there's no dedicated Siri chatbot app. People will want to be able to access their past conversations and have tools for uploading files and images.

It's possible activating Siri could lead to an app-like interface that takes over the iPhone, iPad, or Mac's display, but that will be a departure from Siri's current minimalistic design. Apple could alternatively log conversations in a place like the Notes app, or in the clipboard on the Mac.

Gurman says that Siri won't be an app, but that might mean that it won't only be an app. There could be some kind of dedicated chatbot app that people can use, with Siri also able to be activated and used on a system level and in and across apps.
What Siri Chatbot Can Do

It sounds like the Siri chatbot will be able to do everything that current chatbots can do, and more.
  • Search the web for information
  • Generate images
  • Generate content
  • Summarize information
  • Analyze uploaded files
  • Use personal data to complete tasks
  • Ingest information from emails, messages, files and more
  • Analyze open windows and on-screen content to take action
  • Control device features and settings
  • Search for on-device content, replacing Spotlight
Siri will also be integrated into Apple's core apps, including Mail, Messages, Apple TV, Xcode, and Photos. Siri will be able to search for specific images, edit photos, help with coding, make suggestions for TV shows and movies, and send emails.

iOS 26.4 "LLM Siri" vs. Chatbot Siri

In iOS 26.4, Apple plans to introduce a new, updated version of Siri that relies on large language models, or LLMs. Apple has been working on this version of Siri since Apple Intelligence features were added to iOS 18, but it was delayed because Siri's underlying architecture needed an overhaul to run LLMs.

Starting in iOS 26.4, Siri will be able to hold continuous conversations and provide human-like responses to questions, plus Siri will have new personalization features that will let it do more than before. What Siri won't have, though, is full chatbot capabilities. Here's what we're expecting:

Personal Context

With personal context, Siri will be able to keep track of emails, messages, files, photos, and more, learning more about you to help you complete tasks and keep track of what you've been sent.
  • Show me the files Eric sent me last week.
  • Find the email where Eric mentioned ice skating.
  • Find the books that Eric recommended to me.
  • Where's the recipe that Eric sent me?
  • What's my passport number?
Onscreen Awareness

Onscreen awareness will let Siri see what's on your screen and complete actions involving whatever you're looking at. If someone texts you an address, for example, you can tell Siri to add it to their contact card. Or if you're looking at a photo and want to send it to someone, you can ask Siri to do it for you.

Deeper App Integration

Deeper app integration means that Siri will be able to do more in and across apps, performing actions and completing tasks that are just not possible with the personal assistant right now. We don't have a full picture of what Siri will be capable of, but Apple has provided a few examples of what to expect.
  • Moving files from one app to another.
  • Editing a photo and then sending it to someone.
  • Get directions home and share the ETA with Eric.
  • Send the email I drafted to Eric.
You're not going to have a chat-like interface for back-and-forth conversations with Siri when iOS 26.4 launches, but the personal assistant should be very different than it is now. Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi told employees last summer that the Siri revamp was successful. "This has put us in a position to not just deliver what we announced, but to deliver a much bigger upgrade than that we envisioned," he said.
Siri Redesign

With all of the new functionality coming to Siri, Apple is planning to make visual design changes. It's not quite clear what that will entail, but for the upcoming table-top robot that's in the works, Apple has tested an animated version of Siri that looks similar to the Mac's Finder logo.

Apple could start rolling out that new, more personalized design when Siri gets the major iOS 27 revamp.
Memory

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can remember past co... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: Apple's Siri Chatbot in iOS 27: Everything We Know
 
All anyone really wants on that list is using personal data to complete tasks, and context awareness.

And just awareness enough to actually understand what I'm saying and what I want it to do.

I expressly do not want a Siri chatbot and I think pursuing that is a mistake. I hope it will at least be an option to have it not do that.

I think attempting personality at the thing in your phone that follows your commands is a mistake conceptually in the first place.
 
  • Love
Reactions: cwintermeyer
Am I the only one on MR that believes Grok is way better and more accurate than Wikipedia, Gemini or Chat GBT?
In case this was a real, genuine post, and since you asked another user their reasons for not liking Grok. My reasons are multiple, from it referring to itself as “Mecha-Hitler” to it generating CSAM, to it being owned by the world’s richest man who leaches off government contracts to become more and more wealthy, while manipulating politicians and elections to further his goals.

Now, shifting to the article at hand - this is shaping up to be a big year for Apple and their AI efforts and I look forward to seeing what *actually* gets announced & released. If it’s what this article states, we are in for some big changes.
 
Last edited:
Being grandparent age, with failing eyesight, iOS has become quite difficult recently, my phone mostly now sits in DND mode unused and left on the bedside table upstairs. E ven my iPad is now 90% keyboard filled with a small 1 inch strip of data, the typing area obscured by the KB.

That hardest part, when the ipad now replaces my correctly words with others of it's own, and that next word I think you want to type often adds offensive stuff.

Their asssitance tools like zoom for older vision and cognitive ability is clearly lacking behind what younger people have in terms of stability and bug fxes, especially in dark mode with the LG effects removed. I welcome them providing the changes for the larger majority of people who want them, I hope they continue to provide workable options for the older cohort too.

I do hope they can provide the option of a small amount of on-device voice recognition for those who want to just set times, and control lighting. Without AI making things too difficult.

But even with that, I do fast see my switch to a dumb "oldies" phone fast aproaching now.

Appologies if this desire offends for options offends anyone, it's not intentionally aimed to take anything from you.
 
"Siri will be able to hold continuous conversations and provide human-like responses to questions, plus Siri will have new personalization features"

Nooo! Not a GPP!

Can I at least rename it to Marvin?
 
What if someone (perhaps tens of millions of people) don’t want to be talking to their iPhone to get things done.
Add me to this camp…I aim to speak to all my devices as little as possible. CarPlay is really the only medium where I speak to my iPhone. Conversational chat with ChatGPT turned me off immediately.
 
Is 26.4 and iOS 27 only gonna be about ai and Siri, I hope we get more than just that
 
still wild to believe that rotten Apple has not been able to figure out their own foundation model although Apple had plenty of time to realize it.
 
Will they implement it on existing HomePod speakers like Google did with Gemini Pro?
 
I'm keen to understand how you assess it as better! Frankly I find all LLMs to be similarly unspectacular.

Also, Wikipedia isn't an LLM?
I don't have the 100 post count credential to participate in the political forum, so I'll try to be careful.

No, WP certainly isn't an LLM but like Gemini and Chat GPT, it has bias and sometimes gives downright false answers to Yes/No questions.

I'm sure Grok has it's bias as well and I'm not saying it's perfect, far from it but I believe it draws from more accurate training data when one is after historical or physical facts without an opinion tainting the answer.

Perfection is the enemy of satisfactory. I don't want to anger anyone, I apologize if I have.
 
We don't yet know what the new Siri interface will look like.

Unfortunately, it seems likely that it will look like Liquid Glass.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.