Apple has announced a delay to the highly anticipated “more personalized Siri” features initially promised for iOS 18 last year. This news, first reported by Daring Fireball, confirms that the enhanced Siri capabilities showcased at WWDC 2024 won’t arrive until much later – likely iOS 19 or beyond. This comes in the wake of Apple pulling an iPhone ad depicting these features, and adding disclaimers to its website wherever the super-smart Siri is shown. Not the best look for Apple to be using nonexistent features to sell the current generation of iPhones.
These enhanced features would enable Siri to leverage “personal context,” which essentially means personal information from your device – for example finding flight details from an email or recalling a podcast recommended by a friend. The pulled TV ad showed Bella Ramsay asking Siri to help recall the name of somebody based on a previous meeting.
Such integration promises a significant upgrade to Siri’s usefulness but is understandably complex, particularly because Apple’s strict dedication to privacy means it must ensure user data remains secure and private. Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy said “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.”
Delays like this are rare for Apple – or at least they used to be. In recent years, it’s become increasingly common for Apple to drip-feed new iOS features throughout the year, rather than delivering everything at once with the initial release. Although a somewhat disappointing misstep, we’d prefer this minor embarrassment to the new Siri being released half-baked. We saw what damage that can do with the whole notification summaries controversy, and Apple is wise not to repeat it.