It’s no secret that Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant on iOS and macOS, isn’t quite up to par with its rivals, whether it’s Google Assistant or ChatGPT. While Apple offered a glimmer of hope during its WWDC event in June by unveiling a major overhaul of Siri, the company has remained fairly secretive about exactly when this upgrade would arrive.
Now, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman has revealed when we can expect the new version of Siri to hit our devices – and it doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. According to Gurman’s latest Power On newsletterwe can wait until early next year for the new features.
Gurman previously reported that several new Siri capabilities wouldn’t be available in time for iOS 18’s likely September release, but would instead launch sometime in 2025. However, there’s no information yet on when exactly we might see the changes go into effect.
And he may have now spilled the beans about Apple’s schedule, writing: “Siri features will likely enter developer beta testing in January, then be rolled out to the public around spring — part of an iOS 18.4 upgrade that’s already in the works.” That means it’s possible we won’t see anything until March or April, and possibly even as late as May.
Better late than never?
The scheme outlined in Gurman’s report hints at some of Siri’s new capabilities, such as enabling you to control functions within apps for the first time (so you can edit an image and then email it to a friend, for example). Another feature is Siri’s contextual understanding, which allows it to know what you’re doing or seeing on your screen and take actions based on that content.
We won’t have to wait until next year for every new feature, though, as Siri’s redesign and Apple’s integration of ChatGPT into iOS, among other things, are coming “later this year,” Gurman says. The journalist previously claimed that the redesign would launch alongside iOS 18, while the ChatGPT integration may have to wait until later in 2024.
However, it appears that major features related to Siri’s core skills — rather than the visual look or tools provided by another chatbot — won’t arrive for at least six months, if not longer. That’s a frustratingly long delay, but it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. After all, Apple would rather wait until it feels like it has a new feature than rush it out before it’s ready.
Given how desperately Siri needs a major overhaul, this is probably the right approach—after all, we don’t want to wait years for Siri to catch up, only to find it rushed and unfinished after all of Apple’s WWDC hype. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait.