Apple on Monday seeded the first betas of its upcoming iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 updates to developers for testing, and the initial seed doesn’t include any new Apple Intelligence Siri features. It omission indicates that we likely won’t see any of the promised advancements until the release of iOS 27.
While Apple had been widely-expected to unveil the new Siri features in iOS 26.4, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman warned in February that the iPhone maker would be missing that deadline, due to Apple running into unforeseen problems while testing Siri. The report said Siri was having issues with improperly processing queries and also took too long to respond to requests. Gurman said we likely wouldn’t see some or all of the new Siri features until iOS 26.5 and iOS 27.
Apple engineers had reportedly been internally testing Siri on iOS 26.5, and those involved had told Gurman that the updates included all of the features Apple had promised at WWDC 2024. However, none of the new features have made an appearance, including in yesterday’s initial beta, indicating we likely will not see the new and improved Siri unti iOS 27, which will be unveiled in June at Apple’s WWDC 2026 event.
Now Gurman says Apple will offer a standalone Siri chatbot app that will operate much the same as the ChatGPT and Gemini apps already do today. The app is said to offer all of the features promised nearly two years ago, and is expected to be unveiled alongside iOS 27.
Gurman says the app will operate much like Apple’s Messages app, allowing users to chat with Siri in the same comfortable way they already do with friends and family.
He also commented that Apple’s development of Siri 2.0 is farther ahead than it was last year, making it much more ready for prime time than the barely functioning version it showed off in 2024.
