Earlier today, Apple disclosed that the debut of the “more personalized” version of Siri, initially revealed at WWDC last year, will be postponed. According to the company, it expects to launch these features “in the coming year.”
Bloomberg has released a new report highlighting the internal issues that contributed to this delay, with Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi reportedly expressing “significant concerns regarding the improper functionality of the features during his testing.”
Apple’s AI Challenges
Apple originally aimed to roll out the updated version of Siri with enhancements like personal context and in-app actions in iOS 18.4. However, as development fell behind schedule, the launch was pushed to iOS 18.5 in May. Since making that decision, Apple engineers have been “working tirelessly to resolve a series of bugs in the project,” but their efforts have not yielded successful results.
Bloomberg indicates that “individuals involved in these efforts” now believe these features won’t see the light of day until “next year at the earliest.” Meanwhile, some members within Apple’s AI team are said to think that the features might be entirely discarded. As stated in the report:
Leading up to this latest postponement, software chief Craig Federighi and other executives shared profound concerns internally that the features were either malfunctioning or not performing as advertised during their personal evaluations, according to sources who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topics.
Certain individuals within Apple’s AI division believe that development on these features may need to be halted completely, indicating that Apple might have to reconstruct the functionalities from the ground up. In this scenario, the capabilities would then be postponed until a next-generation Siri, which Apple aims to initiate in 2026.
Apple’s postponement for these iOS 18 features comes on the heels of a separate report earlier this week outlining delays affecting Apple’s plans for a more conversational iteration of Siri in iOS 19.
Today’s report also highlights that Apple employees are “questioning” whether Apple CEO Tim Cook or the board should “take measures to change the leadership of the AI division.” John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, reports directly to Cook. Giannandrea transitioned to Apple from Google in 2018 and received a promotion to the senior vice president level that same year.
The statement released by Apple today did not provide a specific timeline regarding the launch of new Siri features. Here’s the complete statement from Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy shared with Daring Fireball:
Siri assists our users in finding what they need and accomplishing tasks quickly. Over the past six months, we’ve enhanced Siri to be more conversational, introduced new functionalities like type-to-Siri and product knowledge, and integrated it with ChatGPT. We’ve also been focused on creating a more personalized Siri, which will have improved awareness of your personal context and the ability to perform actions within and across applications. It’s taking us longer than initially expected to deliver these features, and we anticipate their rollout in the coming year.
The exact meaning of “in the coming year” remains uncertain. Bloomberg’s reporting implies that the timeline may extend into 2026 instead of concluding in 2025.
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