Apple has confirmed that it will take “longer than we thought” to deliver some of its promised Apple Intelligence updates to Siri.
In a statement to Daring Fireball today, the company said it anticipates rolling out “a more personalized Siri” to users “in the coming year.”
The full statement from Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy:
“Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.”
Apple promised a much more powerful version of Siri when it unveiled Apple Intelligence at WWDC last June. For example, Siri will eventually be able to tap into your personal context to “help you in ways that are unique to you.”
Awareness of your personal context enables Siri to help you in ways that are unique to you. Can’t remember if a friend shared that recipe with you in a note, a text, or an email? Need your passport number while booking a flight? Siri can use its knowledge of the information on your device to help find what you’re looking for, without compromising your privacy.
Apple is also working on on-screen awareness for Siri:
Apple Intelligence empowers Siri with onscreen awareness, so it can understand and take action with things on your screen. If a friend texts you their new address, you can say “Add this address to their contact card,” and Siri will take care of it.
And finally, in-app actions:
Seamlessly take action in and across apps with Siri. You can make a request like “Send the email I drafted to April and Lilly” and Siri knows which email you’re referencing and which app it’s in. And Siri can take actions across apps, so after you ask Siri to enhance a photo for you by saying “Make this photo pop,” you can ask Siri to drop it in a specific note in the Notes app — without lifting a finger.
Bloomberg has repeatedly reported on the delays plaguing the development of these features. According to that reporting, Apple initially aimed to ship the more personalized Siri as part of iOS 18.4. Today’s statement from Apple confirms that we’ll have to keep waiting, but it doesn’t say how long.
However, even as Apple has delayed this “more personalized” version of Siri, it has shipped a strong collection of Apple Intelligence features over the last six months. Siri is better at handling multiple requests in a row and can now keep up when you stumble over your words. ChatGPT integration
Beyond those improvements to Siri, Apple has shipped:
- Writing Tools
- Genmoji
- Image Playground
- Reduce Interruptions Focus mode
- Summaries for Mail, Messages, notifications, and Safari
- Priority messages in Mail
- Smart Reply
- Clean Up in the Photos app
- Natural language search for Photos
- Memory movies in Photos
Still, I can’t deny that it’s disappointing for Apple to delay this more personalized Siri experience. It was heralded as the flagship Apple Intelligence feature when Apple announced iOS 18 at WWDC 2024. Now, it’s unclear whether it will even ship as part of the iOS 18 cycle.
My favorite iPhone accessories:
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