Apple’s recent postponement of Siri updates has generated significant negative attention, leading to an all-hands meeting during which executives described the situation as “ugly and embarrassing.” However, a pivotal remark from that meeting indicates that Apple successfully averted a major issue by making this decision.
Reported Reliability Issues with New Siri Features
Postponing new iOS features does not reflect well on a company, particularly when the media uses strong language to criticize it.
Yet, what’s far worse? Rolling out essential features that simply fail to function.
Leaked details from Apple’s recent all-hands meeting about the Siri delays suggest that this is exactly the pitfall the company managed to avoid.
According to Mark Gurman:
Walker indicated that the decision to push back the features stemmed from quality concerns, noting that the technology operates effectively only about 66% to 80% of the time. He expressed that the team “can achieve further improvements to raise those metrics, ensuring users receive a dependable experience.”
It’s simply unacceptable to launch iOS features that work only two-thirds of the time.
Even features that function 80% of the time still fall short of the standard.
It’s hard to envision any scenario where Apple would justifiably release features under such conditions.
In the case of these particular Siri features, the stakes are even higher for two reasons:
- Apple introduced these features last June, so if they are released nearly a year later still malfunctioning, it would be particularly humiliating.
- Moreover, the essential nature of these Siri features makes any performance flaws especially problematic.
The Critical Importance of Siri Upgrades Justifies the Delay
On this latter point, the entire premise behind the new Siri is its expected ability to serve as a genuinely intelligent assistant.
The capability to understand personal context—like messages received, calendar events, and more—is designed to make Siri dependable for more critical tasks.
However, if Siri provides inaccurate responses two-thirds of the time, or even 20% of the time, the ramifications could be severe.
As John Gruber highlights, referencing Apple’s WWDC example regarding Siri providing flight information for a family member:
If Siri says, “Your mom’s flight will arrive at 4:30 this afternoon, and it’s currently showing an on-time arrival,” you want that information to be accurate if you’ve committed to pick her up from the airport. You’ll be frustrated if you show up only to find out she lands at 7:30 instead. And you could be in serious trouble if she arrives at 1:30 and you arrive three hours late, having relied on Siri’s answer.
Such scenarios underscore the significant potential for the enhanced Siri to operate as a true assistant while also illustrating the potential disaster for Apple if these new features were to launch and fail to perform effectively.
Legendary Nintendo creator Shigeru Miyamoto is often quoted: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”
While games and operating system updates are not comparable, and the authenticity of that quote is sometimes disputed, the underlying message remains clear.
A delayed Siri update, we all hope, will ultimately yield a good product, whereas a hastily released update would have been detrimental to both Apple and its users.
What are your thoughts on Apple’s decision to postpone Siri’s upgrades? Share your opinion in the comments.
