Apple’s highly anticipated overhaul of Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence, is facing delays, with many of its advanced features now expected to debut in iOS 18.5 rather than iOS 18.4. Originally set for an April 2025 launch with iOS 18.4, these upgrades got pushed back due to engineering hiccups and software bugs, per Bloomberg and other reports.
At the WWDC 2024 keynote, Apple introduced several amazing new features for Siri 2.0, like on-screen awareness, which allows Siri to recognize content displayed on the screen and tailor its responses accordingly. For example, users could ask Siri to save an address shared in a message directly into their contacts.
There were also in-app actions without opening apps using a platform called App Intents; Siri will be able to perform complex tasks within apps, such as editing a photo and saving it to a specific folder, without requiring manual navigation.
There’s more. Personal context understanding. Powered by an on-device semantic index, Siri will interpret personal data like emails, messages, and calendar events to provide contextually relevant responses.
But why the delay? Apple’s internal testing revealed that these features are not yet performing consistently. Employees testing the new Siri have reported issues with reliability.
- iOS 18.4 Beta: Expected this week for developers.
- iOS 18.4 Public Release: Planned for April 2025.
- iOS 18.5 Beta: Likely to begin in April.
- iOS 18.5 Public Release: Expected in May 2025.
These new Siri, aka Siri 2.0 features, will require an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any model from the upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, and also the upcoming rumored iPhone SE 4.
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