Apple's launch of "Personal Siri" is now delayed indefinitely making insiders feel embarrassed
The delay in getting Siri to the next level where it could have the AI chops necessary to serve iPhone users in the new AI era has been frustrating. Outside of handling timers and alarms, most of my queries these days are directed at ChatGPT or Gemini. Apple's partnership with OpenAI allows iPhone users with the Action Button to be one button press away from receiving an AI-crafted response to a question.
Now you might be thinking, "But Alan, doesn't AI hallucinate?" To that, I respond that while all AI models remind you to check their responses in case of a hallucination, Siri can be senile. That is why I was looking forward to the improvements to the digital assistant that would allow the ol' gal to access your email, texts, and other apps in order to correctly tell you that your mother's plane was landing at 3:30 pm and that you made a reservation at Benihana at 7 pm.
The other changes that have been delayed include one that gives Siri the ability to know the content on your phone's display allowing the assistant to respond to questions you might have about something or someone who appears on the display of your phone. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's edition of his weekly Power On newsletter, these useful and necessary upgrades to Siri have been delayed indefinitely.
During normal times, Siri's problems would not be a good look for Apple but we are in far from normal times. AI is redrawing the tech landscape and one might consider Siri to be the iPhone's AI mouthpiece. Robby Walker, the human in charge of Siri at Apple, calls the delays embarrassing, according to Gurman. Other adjectives used to convey Walker and Apple's disappointment with the revised Siri timeline-whatever it is-include ugly and disappointing.
We haven't seen an Apple executive turn against an iPhone feature so harshly since CEO Tim Cook responded to the fiasco that was the launch of Apple Maps back in 2012 by penning an apology that was posted on Apple's website. In that letter, Cook told iPhone users that while Apple was fixing Maps users should download rival map apps such as Google Maps and Waze. Walker said that one of the problems was Apple's decision to jump the gun and run an ad for "Personal Siri" even though the feature won't be available until next year at the earliest. The ad has since been pulled by the company.
There is plenty of blame to go around notes Gurman. Having run an ad for "Personal" Siri and previewing it at last year's WWDC, the feature could now be considered vaporware. However, we certainly do expect Apple to eventually release all of the new capabilities for Siri that it promised last year. In case you were wondering, the record for Apple vaporware is 562 days for the AirPower charger that was canceled in October 2020.
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