After whispers last month that the big generative AI upgrade to the Siri personal assistant was in trouble, Apple officially confirmed the delay last week.
As commentators have pointed out, it’s an embarrassing moment for Apple, because it suggests the demo of the improved Siri at WWDC last year was actually little more than a concept video.
Now, thanks to extremely detailed report of an internal meeting at Apple published by Bloomberg, we have some insights into why Siri 2.0 has been pushed back so dramatically. The good news is that it’s working; the bad news is that it’s not working consistently.
Reliability issues
The piece quotes extensively Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple, who describes the saga as “ugly.” The piece claims that the decision to postpone was because Siri 2.0 only works as intended two-thirds to 80% of the time, making a delay feel like a no-brainer.
“If you were using these features in the build, you were probably wondering: Are these ready?”, Walker is quoted as asking. “How do I feel about shipping these to our customers? Is this the right choice?”
While most people accept that AI makes mistakes, a one-in-three (or even a best-case one-in-five) failure rate is clearly not a great introduction to new technology, and a recipe for users to opt out. As such, Walker reportedly explained that the delay is to ensure the team “can make more progress to get those percentages up, so that users get something they can really count on.”
“These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse,” he’s quoted as adding.
Interestingly, we do get an insight into Siri 2.0’s functionality, and it’s the kind of thing that would certainly stump the current version. The report writes that the AI was “able to locate his driver’s license number on command and find specific photos of a child,” and that Siri could also “precisely manipulate apps” via voice. We’re told how Siri embedded content in an email, added recipients and made other changes.
Will it even make iOS 19?
The expectation was that the new Siri would slip to iOS 19 and launch with the iPhone 17, but even that may be optimistic, with Walker stating that while that’s the aim, it “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then.”
There are “other commitments across Apple to other projects” that may take priority, Walker reportedly said. “We understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred.”
While Walker concluded the meeting by stating his belief that Apple will “ship the world’s greatest virtual assistant”, the flashy announcement followed by public silence has echos of AirPower, Apple’s wireless charger that was announced at the company’s 2017 iPhone X and then abandoned, unreleased, two years later.
With Google Assistant being retired for Gemini, and Amazon introducing Alexa Plus to the world, Apple can’t risk a repeat of that with Siri 2.0.
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