Apple CEO Tim Cook inspects the new iPhone 16 during an Apple special event at Apple headquarters on September 09, 2024 in Cupertino, California.
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When unveiling Apple Intelligence last summer, one of Apple’s flashiest demos showed the Siri voice assistant juggling several apps to help a user plan a lunch after landing from a flight.
Those capabilities won’t be coming anytime soon.
Apple on Friday announced that it is delaying the features that would supercharge Siri with the ability to take action inside other apps until next year. That feature was expected to be released this spring.
Another Siri improvement that is also being delayed would have allowed it to take advantage of what Apple calls “personal context.” For example, Siri would be able to fill out forms on users’ behalf with their personal information based on their driver’s license numbers taken from a photo.
“We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “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 delay highlights some of the challenges Apple faces developing a next-generation voice assistant that uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to be more useful and conversational. The pressure has heightened since the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT that launched in late 2022 and ushered in the era of generative AI.
Besides OpenAI, Apple risks falling behind rivals including Amazon, which announced an upgraded Alexa voice assistant last month but hasn’t released it, and Google, which is developing similar capabilities with its Gemini assistant. But all consumer voice assistants have had issues with incorrect answers and task automation.
Many Apple devices have already received some Siri upgrades if they support Apple Intelligence, including more conversational capabilities, a new look that makes the entire phone screen glow and integration with ChatGPT.
Apple Intelligence also includes features that can generate text or images, edit photographs and summarize notifications. Those features are currently available on newer iPhones.
The delay to Siri’s supercharged features isn’t Apple’s first run-in with issues adapting to new-age AI.
Earlier this year, the company disabled Apple Intelligence summaries for news apps like The New York Times and BBC after users discovered that the AI system had twisted headlines to display inaccurate facts.
Apple is also counting on its army of app developers to lay the groundwork for its next-generation Siri assistant by developing chunks of code Apple calls “app intents.” That code is intended to allow the AI-enhanced Siri to use functions within their apps.
While developers can currently build and test app intents, they won’t be able to see how they work in Siri until Apple releases a beta version of the upgraded assistant. Apple typically announces major new software features in June, at its WWDC conference.
