Apple's much-anticipated new Siri project is already two years behind schedule, but even so, the deeply reimagined smart assistant will still be available to users in "beta" form when it finally debuts, according to people familiar with the matter.
As early as the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024), Apple introduced a new generation of Siri for the first time, including stronger context awareness and a series of major upgrades for "Apple Intelligence". However, this set of features, which was seen as a major evolution of Siri towards AI, was not launched with iOS 18 later that year as expected, nor did it appear in iOS 26 afterwards. It is currently widely expected in the industry that the new Siri will be released with the next generation system iOS 27.
After receiving an additional development cycle of about two years, the outside world originally believed that Apple would end this Siri transformation with a relatively mature and complete official version of the product. But according to internal version information disclosed by Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman in his latest "Power On" weekly report, the new Siri will be released as a "beta". This means that even the version that has been delayed for a long time and repeatedly polished is still regarded as a product form that has not yet been completely finalized within Apple.
Reports indicate that Apple has added a switch option for turning off the new Siri experience in the pre-release version of iOS 27 currently being tested internally. When the user chooses to turn off this option, the system will fall back to the existing version of Siri. This design will first appear in the test version provided to developers after WWDC, but Apple seems to intend to retain this switch for the time being when it launches the official version of iOS 27 to ordinary users this fall.
If the above arrangement comes true, the new Siri will be available as a beta version to a wide range of iPhone and iPad users. In traditional product rhythms, Apple tends to strictly distinguish between "testing" and "official release." This time, core system functions are provided in beta form in parallel for a long time, which may weaken the market's confidence in the maturity and reliability of the new Siri to a certain extent. Considering that Apple has invested many years in research and development for this upgrade, this "still a beta version after two years of delay" attitude has also triggered further discussions in the industry about project rhythm and quality management.