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@Simon Willison's Weblog
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Apple is facing setbacks in its AI development, leading to delays in key features for Siri and Apple Intelligence. The enhanced version of Siri, promising a more personalized AI assistant experience, won't arrive until 2026, a pushback from its originally slated release with iOS 18. These delayed features are focused on enhancing Siri's context-awareness and capabilities, including scanning emails, messages, files, and photos to perform tasks across multiple apps, and understanding on-screen actions.
Apple's plan to replace Qualcomm modems with its in-house C1 chips is also facing hurdles, postponing the release of the mmWave-compatible C1 modem until 2026, potentially impacting the iPhone 17 lineup. This delay means the iPhone 17 series will continue using Qualcomm modems, as Apple grapples with technical challenges in perfecting mmWave integration. While the first-generation C1 modem offered improved power management, it faced inadequacy in supporting mmWave 5G. This setback impacts Apple's 5G independence and delays modem upgrades for iPhone users.
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Apple's plan to replace Qualcomm modems with its in-house C1 chips is also facing hurdles, postponing the release of the mmWave-compatible C1 modem until 2026, potentially impacting the iPhone 17 lineup. This delay means the iPhone 17 series will continue using Qualcomm modems, as Apple grapples with technical challenges in perfecting mmWave integration. While the first-generation C1 modem offered improved power management, it faced inadequacy in supporting mmWave 5G. This setback impacts Apple's 5G independence and delays modem upgrades for iPhone users.
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- Simon Willison's Weblog: Apple told John Gruber (and other Apple press) this about the new "personalized" Siri: It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.
- THE DECODER: Apple has pushed back several key features of its Apple Intelligence initiative for Siri that were originally slated for iOS 18.
- Shelly Palmer: I like to think, "Siri can't suck forever," but apparently Apple's AI assistant is planning to test my patience. Apple's much-anticipated Agentic Siri update, initially set to roll out alongside iOS 18.4, has hit a snag. Citing "engineering hurdles," Apple pushed the release to later this year—or perhaps even beyond, depending on who you ask. Beta testers described inconsistencies, glitches, and a general sense of "not quite ready for prime time." Translation: Siri still sucks, at least for now.
- David Phelan: If you’ve been waiting for the new, improved Siri to arrive in the next few weeks, you need to practice patience. Apple just made a rare statement on the subject.
- Maginative: Apple's latest iOS update will use AI to distill user reviews into quick-read summaries, potentially changing how users discover and evaluate apps.
- bsky.app: Are you waiting for Apple to fix Siri? Keep at it. Apple confirmed that it's delaying its Apple Intelligence feature for a "more personalized Siri" and now anticipates rolling it out "in the coming year." This isn't surprising: Siri has always been a joke, and Apple Intelligence is somehow worse.
- MacStories: Simon Willison, one of the more authoritative independent voices in the LLM space right now, published a good theory on what may have happened with Apple’s delay of Apple Intelligence’s Siri personalization features: I have a hunch that this delay might relate to security. These new Apple Intelligence features involve Siri responding to requests to […]
- Simon Willison's Weblog: Mark Gurman reports on some leaked details from internal Apple meetings concerning the delays in shipping personalized Siri. This note in particular stood out to me: Walker said the decision to delay the features was made because of quality issues and that the company has found the technology only works properly up to two-thirds to 80% of the time. He said the group “can make more progress to get those percentages up, so that users get something they can really count on.� [...] But Apple wants to maintain a high bar and only deliver the features when they’re polished, he said. “These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse.� I imagine it's a lot harder to get reliable results out of small, local LLMs that run on an iPhone. Features that fail 1/3 to 1/5 of the time are unacceptable for a consumer product like this.
- www.techradar.com: Apple's failure to deliver the full Apple Intelligence Siri experience has us all reevaluating the company's vaunted status.
- iThinkDifferent: Apple admits Siri’s AI upgrade is a mess, delays features due to “ugly� issues
- www.tomsguide.com: We're still waiting for a smarter Siri in Apple Intelligence — and that's a problem. Here's a closer look at the challenges facing Apple ahead of this year's iOS 19 update.
- Mark Gurman: BREAKING: Apple's top Siri exec called AI delays embarrassing & ugly in meeting, while saying a decision to promote features before they were ready worsened the situation. Still, he praised the team & vowed to make Siri the "world's greatest" assistant.
- THE DECODER: This article discusses the broader challenges of scaling generative AI, focusing on Apple's Siri delays as an example. It highlights the tension between rapid deployment and maintaining quality standards across millions of devices.
- MacSparky: Apple’s AI Woes