A Bit of A.I. Siri Followup ⇥ bloomberg.com
Earlier today, in reacting to the news of delayed Siri updates, I noted Mark Gurman had recently reported these features could be released in May, but I doubted it. It turns out I could have been more up-to-date if I had bothered to refresh his author page at Bloomberg.
Bloomberg News reported on Feb. 14 that Apple was struggling to finish developing the features and the enhancements would be postponed until at least May — when iOS 18.5 is due to arrive. Since then, Apple engineers have been racing to fix a rash of bugs in the project. The work has been unsuccessful, according to people involved in the efforts, and they now believe the features won’t be released until next year at the earliest.
Take this with a grain of salt, of course — these could be pessimistic engineers ranting in Gurman’s direct messages, for all we know — but it does seem to match the tone of the statement. Maybe these features come in an early iOS 19 build. Probably, though, they get dragged out to one of the updates next year after Apple — again, according to Gurman’s reporting — may rebuild the features as part of new Siri architecture.
One more little thing, courtesy Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:
Since last fall, Apple has been marketing the iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence with an unreleased Siri feature. After confirming today that the more personal version of Siri isn’t coming anytime soon, Apple has pulled the ad in question.
The commercial starred Bella Ramsey who should probably win an award for acting like Siri worked.
Nice.