Apple’s Siri Overhaul Faces Major Delays: AI Features May Not Arrive Until 2025

Apple’s planned Siri upgrade with AI-driven features has been delayed due to engineering issues and software bugs. Initially set for iOS 18.4 in April 2024, the rollout may be pushed to iOS 18.5 or later. The delay could also impact future iOS updates, potentially pushing some features to 2026.

Apple’s Siri Overhaul Faces Major Delays: AI Features May Not Arrive Until 2025

Apple’s plans to enhance Siri with Apple Intelligence features are facing delays, with engineering challenges and software bugs contributing to inconsistencies in performance. Initially, the update was expected to be introduced in iOS 18.4, slated for release in April 2024. However, these issues may push back the rollout to iOS 18.5 in May 2024 or later. In a worst-case scenario, Apple could launch the new Apple’s Siri features in iOS 18.4 but disable them by default until they are fully refined.

The overhaul of Apple’s Siri is part of Apple’s broader strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into its ecosystem, aiming to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, and Meta. Siri’s new features are designed to make interactions more intuitive and personalized, offering three key upgrades: Personal Context Awareness, Enhanced App Control, and On-Screen Awareness.

Personal Context Awareness will allow Apple’s Siri to access and use user data to provide more accurate and contextually relevant responses. This could lead to smarter suggestions, improved task handling, and better understanding of user preferences. Enhanced App Control will make Siri more efficient in interacting with third-party apps, allowing users to perform a wider range of tasks seamlessly. Lastly, On-Screen Awareness will enable Siri to process and respond to content that users are viewing on their devices, offering smarter interactions based on real-time visual data.

Despite these ambitious upgrades, Apple is facing challenges in making these features work consistently. Employees testing the new functionalities have reported several bugs and performance issues, which has caused significant delays in the development process. This could mean that the planned release date for iOS 18.4 may need to be pushed back, possibly to iOS 18.5 or later.

Apple has also been focusing on expanding Apple Intelligence support to multiple languages, with an anticipated launch in India in April 2025. This global rollout further adds pressure on the company to refine its AI features quickly. However, major iOS updates are typically not launched as late as May, given Apple’s usual shift in focus to the next iOS version after its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which typically occurs in June. This could create a time crunch for Apple to finalize the AI-powered Siri enhancements.

The delays are not only impacting Siri but could also affect other planned features for iOS 19. These delays might push back some of the company’s planned innovations for 2026, which could have a ripple effect on the development cycle for future iOS versions. As Apple faces increasing competition in the AI space, delays in delivering enhanced Siri functionality could affect its position in the market, especially as rivals like Google and Meta continue to make strides with their AI-driven virtual assistants and other technologies.

In addition to these technical challenges, Apple is also working with Chinese tech giants Baidu and Alibaba to develop AI features that comply with local regulations in China. These efforts highlight the complex and varied regulatory environment that Apple must navigate in different markets, especially as it seeks to expand its AI-driven services globally.

Apple’s Siri AI strategy is critical to maintaining its competitive edge in a rapidly changing tech landscape. As Apple’s Siri becomes a more integral part of the Apple ecosystem, users are expecting increasingly personalized, intuitive, and seamless interactions. The company’s efforts to refine Apple’s Siri and integrate it with Apple Intelligence features represent a major step forward in its AI ambitions. However, the delays in these updates underscore the challenges Apple faces in delivering on these promises and highlight the growing pressure to meet the high expectations set by its competitors.

The impact of these delays could be far-reaching, as Apple may need to adjust its development timelines for future iOS versions. If the rollout of iOS 18.4 is delayed or features are disabled by default, the company will need to balance its AI goals with the technical requirements of maintaining stability and user satisfaction. For now, Apple’s focus appears to be on refining Siri and ensuring that the new functionalities are reliable and effective before they are introduced to the public, which may mean pushing back the timeline for a major update.