Report says next Siri update is coming this fall and may not include "Personal Siri"
If you're like me and are really looking forward to seeing the new "Personal Siri" with the ability to access info in your Calendar, Messages. and Mail apps, you might have signed up for each new beta hoping that this would be the one to include Siri's new capabilities. The iOS 18.4 beta program didn't deliver and of course, the new and improved digital assistant failed to show up in the final version of iOS 18.4.
Similarly, installing iOS 18.5 beta 1 turned out to be a dud for most iPhone users hoping to get an early look at the new things that Siri can do. For example, with the improved digital assistant, you'll be able to ask Siri what time the plane carrying your Aunt Hill (short for Hillary) is expected to land. Siri will browse through your calendar, texts, and emails looking for this information. Apple has been forced to delay the release of "Personal Siri, which was reiterated today in The New York Times inside a broader article about Apple's recent missteps.
Testing showed that personal Siri was not ready to be released
Why the delay? The Times cites a trio of anonymous people working on the project who say that in testing Siri provided incorrect information about 33% of the time. While the cynical and flat-out Siri haters might say that this percentage is par for the course with Siri, the real rate is about 50% lower. According to a report released earlier this year, Apple's personal digital assistant has 86.5 million users in the U.S.Testing showed that Siri understood 99.8% of queries asked but correctly answered 83.1% of those which results in a 16.9% rate of incorrect responses.
Apple Intelligence did bring some changes to Siri. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Apple has already been the recipient of some social media attacks over its underwhelming Apple Intelligence AI initiative. Tech analyst Michael Gartenberg summed things up with a comment that said, "If ever there’s been an example of over-promising and under-delivering, it’s Apple Intelligence." It's not clear that Apple has over-promised on "Personal Siri,"it just is late in delivering the goods. But that is enough for some Apple customers to have accused the tech-giant of false advertising in a federal lawsuit.
In a promotional video for "Personal Siri," which has since been removed by Apple, an iPhone user sees someone she was smitten with when they met at a coffee shop months before. She asks Siri for his name and Siri gives it to her. Keep in mind that this is a bit of trickery on Apple's part because the iPhone user would have had to message or email someone about running into this guy at the coffee shop. Or, it could have been listed in her calendar. All of these things are possible but you should know that without getting this information, Siri will have no idea who you ran into in a coffee shop months ago.
When is the next big update for Siri coming?
The report, citing the three anonymous sources again, says that Apple will release a new virtual virtual assistant this fall that will be capable of editing pictures and sending them to others on request. Hopefully, this update will include "Personal Siri, but don't count on it." Back in November, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman wrote that most of the new Siri features including "Personal Siri" won't be released until 2026.
Apple executives are giving off the old "What, me worry?" vibe noting that its rivals like Google and Meta also have not figured out how best to utilize AI either.
The Times report said that the heads of two Apple software teams were fighting over which one would lead the release of Siri's new abilities. As a result, both Robby Walker, who was supposed to be in charge of Siri, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, a senior executive on the software team, ended up with pieces of the project.
Considering the promise that Siri showed when first released in 2011 on the iPhone 4s, it would seem that Apple was not aggressive enough when the time came to expand the digital assistant's capabilities.
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