No sooner had Apple pushed out a rather mundane iOS 26.3 update that we’re hearing the exciting sounding iOS 26.4 feature slate may return to the backburner.
According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple is poised to yet again delay a number of new Siri features that are designed to bring the personal assistant into the generative AI era. The erstwhile Apple watcher’s sources say Apple may look to spread out the Google Gemini powered features over the next few versions, rather than debuting them all next month.
That’s because some of those features are still performing badly in testing and aren’t ready for prime time. Gurman says the features that could arrive in versions beyond iOS 26.4 include Siri’s ability to “tap into personal data” and “voice-based control of in-app actions.”
In his most recent report, Gurman writes: “After planning to include the new capabilities in iOS 26.4 — an operating system update slated for March — Apple is now working to spread them out over future versions, according to people familiar with the matter. That would mean possibly postponing at least some features until at least iOS 26.5, due in May, and iOS 27, which comes out in September.
“One feature is especially likely to slip: the expanded ability for Siri to tap into personal data. That technology would let users ask the assistant to, say, search old text messages to locate a podcast shared by a friend and immediately play it.”
It just goes to show that, despite inking a deal with Google to make Gemini the brains behind Siri, it hasn’t solved Apple’s long-running problems with modernising the assistant to even be as effective as first-gen Alexa – an effort more than decade in the making in various guises
It may be that the bulk of the features Apple promised in 2024 might not be available until the back of 2027 when iOS 27 rolls out to the public. Probably…
Read the full article here
