Apple’s relationship with AI has been anything but smooth. Initially criticized for falling behind in the AI race, the company’s much-anticipated entry into AI-powered experiences with Apple Intelligence was expected to be a game changer. Instead, it became a source of ongoing frustration. What should have been a triumphant debut turned into a logistical headache, marked by delays, fragmented rollouts, and underwhelming features that damaged Apple’s reputation for seamless execution.
Apple’s last hope for redeeming its AI story was the release of an AI-powered Siri. But with the latest delay pushing the update to at least 2026 Apple now faces an unprecedented crisis.
The State of Apple Intelligence
From the start, Apple Intelligence has faced significant challenges. Not only did Apple arrive late to the AI game, but many of the Apple Intelligence features promised also failed to impress, offering little that felt truly groundbreaking. Tools like Writing, Image Playground, and Clean Up fell into the “been there, done that” category, leaving users underwhelmed.
There has always been an unspoken expectation that even if Apple is behind, its execution would make up for the delay. Yet, with Apple Intelligence, even that expectation has fallen short. Unlike the smooth, timely releases Apple is known for, AI features have been marred by delays and inconsistencies, resulting in a fragmented and disjointed user experience.
Timeline of Delays and Rollouts
- WWDC 2024 (June 2024): Apple introduced Apple Intelligence to the world during the keynote at their annual developer conference, officially marking their entry into the AI space.
- iOS 18 release (September 2024): iOS 18 was officially released as a stable version, but as per expectations, Apple Intelligence was noticeably absent. The initial release of iOS 18 did not include any Apple Intelligence features, further disappointing users who had been eagerly waiting for its debut.
- iOS 18.1 (October 2024): iOS 18.1 marked the first arrival of Apple Intelligence features, but the rollout was slow and fragmented. While several AI-driven additions made their way into the update, including Writing tools, a slightly revamped Siri with a new interface, Notification summaries, priority notifications in messages and emails, natural language search in the Photos app, custom memory movies, AI-generated summaries for calls and notes recordings, and AI-powered Focus Mode, many key features were still missing. Despite these additions, the update felt incomplete, with significant features notably absent.
- iOS 18.2 (December 2024): A new wave of Apple Intelligence features arrived with iOS 18.2, including ChatGPT integration, Image Playground, Genmoji, Image Wand, and Visual Intelligence for the iPhone 16 lineup. Despite these additions, the overall roster was still far from complete, leaving many key features missing.
- iOS 18.3 (January 2025): Eight months after Apple first announced AI, the promised features remained disjointed and incomplete. In a rare move for Apple, the company even disabled an AI feature it had previously shipped. Due to inaccuracies, AI-generated notification summaries for news apps were temporarily removed, further tarnishing the rollout.
- iOS 18.4 (Expected in April 2025): While iOS 18.4 is set to arrive next month, it is expected to still fall short of delivering the remaining Apple Intelligence features, even 11 months after the initial announcement. The slow and fragmented rollout continues to frustrate users.
Nearly a year later, Apple Intelligence is still incomplete and inconsistent, marking its debut as one of the most chaotic rollouts in Apple’s history. The slow and fragmented delivery of promised features has left many users disappointed and questioning the company’s ability to execute on its AI ambitions.
Apple Intelligence: More Hype than Impact?
The fragmented rollout of Apple Intelligence features is just one of the many issues Apple’s AI efforts are facing.
Despite releasing several Apple Intelligence features, none have had a meaningful impact on users’ lives. The company has yet to deliver anything truly transformative.
That said, not everything about Apple Intelligence has been a letdown. Features like Writing Tools have offered a privacy-focused alternative to AI-assisted writing, and priority notifications have provided some practical benefits. However, beyond these few successes, Apple Intelligence remains largely forgettable.
Another feature, Notification Summaries, has become somewhat controversial, much like many aspects of Apple Intelligence. While notification summaries can help users quickly review their alerts, the AI-driven interpretations are often unreliable, leading to mixed results and frustration for users.
Notification Summaries aren’t entirely useless; in fact, they can be quite helpful. However, they’ve also caused some significant issues. The summaries particularly struggle with more informal text messages, often taking them too literally—something that AI models still need to improve upon. In some cases, the summaries have completely misrepresented the meaning of notifications, especially from news apps. This misinterpretation is one of the main reasons Apple temporarily disabled notification summaries for news apps.
Features like Image Playground and Genmoji function well, but they don’t offer anything truly groundbreaking. After a brief period of novelty, you might easily forget about them.
One feature that had most people, including myself, excited—besides the new Siri—was the Clean Up tool. It had the potential to be genuinely useful in daily life, but unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to expectations. Clean Up struggles with even basic edits, making it feel more like an afterthought than a real AI-driven improvement. In contrast, devices like Google’s Pixel and Samsung’s S25 already offer a more refined version of this feature, showcasing what’s truly possible.
Google’s Magic Eraser is even available on older iPhones, and it outperforms Clean Up by removing objects seamlessly without distortions. So, why can’t Apple deliver the same level of quality?
As if the ongoing disappointments around Apple Intelligence weren’t enough, Apple dropped an even bigger bombshell amidst it all. Looking back, all these consistent letdowns should have been a red flag for what would turn out to be the biggest disappointment surrounding Apple Intelligence — the delay of Siri’s AI overhaul.
There were rumors that Siri’s AI overhaul might arrive with iOS 18.4 in April, but last Friday, Apple shattered those expectations by confirming that the update has been delayed indefinitely.
Although the company hopes to deliver these features by the release of iOS 19 in late 2025, the use of “at least” leaves a lot of uncertainty. There is no clear timeline for when, or even if, Apple will be able to fulfill its vision for Siri’s AI transformation.
Siri’s Evolution: Another Letdown Instead of a Breakthrough
Apple promised a new era for Siri with Apple Intelligence — one that would transform the virtual assistant into a truly useful tool. After years of users demanding an overhaul, it seemed Apple was finally ready to listen.
The updates were meant to make Siri an indispensable assistant, seamlessly integrating into users’ daily lives. With new features like contextual understanding, on-screen awareness, and in-app actions, Siri was expected to assist with nearly everything on your device, providing a smarter, more intuitive experience.
The improvements for Siri that Apple showcased at WWDC 2024 were genuinely impressive. With a simple prompt like, “When is Dad’s flight arriving?”, Siri could understand who you meant by “Dad,” pull flight details from your emails, cross-check that data with real-time flight information, and give you the exact landing time.
After years of stagnation, it finally seemed like Siri was ready to step into its full potential. And this was just the beginning. With the ability to take actions within and across your apps, it felt like Siri was about to become a truly helpful assistant. Apple’s promise of “AI for the rest of us” started to feel like it might actually deliver on its hype.
Does An Improved Siri Even Exist?
While Mark Gurman’s report suggests that the new personalized Siri works, many Apple fans, including myself, are taking this information with a grain of salt. It’s been 10 months since the WWDC 2024 keynote, and not a single demo of the improved Siri has been shown to the public. If a feature works 80% of the time, can’t it at least be demoed?
Even John Gruber of Daring Fireball has called it “vaporware”. No one outside of Apple can vouch for its existence, which raises serious concerns about whether it will ever live up to the promise.
It can be argued that Apple, ever since its post-NeXT reunification era, has adhered to a rule of not publishing concept videos. Perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that the LLM Siri truly exists as more than just a concept, and the only thing holding it back from being shipped is getting it to work 100% of the time.
However, it’s also worth noting that the Apple which avoided publishing concept videos for decades was the same company that never had to worry about falling behind in the technology race. The rise of AI has changed that, and it can be argued that Apple has found itself in uncharted waters for the first time in a long while.
Given the circumstances, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that this is a company scrambling to appease its shareholders.
Apple’s AI Crisis: The Aftereffects of Siri’s Delay
Delays to the personalized Siri have now even caused setbacks for the release of Apple’s smart home hub, often referred to as HomePad, as it reportedly depends on the new App Intent features with Siri.
According to a private meeting with the Siri team, the new personalized Siri is still far from ready to be shipped. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported that the AI-powered assistant currently works only 60-80% of the time, meaning that in about a third of interactions, it simply fails.
Given these numbers, Apple has decided to postpone the launch until they can ensure the feature is reliable enough for users to truly depend on.
There doesn’t seem to be much fallout from the all-hands meeting with the Siri team, though reports suggest that Apple currently has no plans to fire any executives. However, that could change in the future. What’s clear, though, is that there is a growing sense of urgency at Apple.
To address the AI crisis, more executives are being reassigned under John Giannandra, the head of AI at Apple, to help turn the situation around. Additionally, the company’s AI efforts will be the main topic of discussion at a major offsite executive meeting scheduled for later this week.
Apple Intelligence vs. the Competition: Is It Already Too Late?
The problem with the delay of the new Siri isn’t just about missing out on the features we were promised. Even if the new Siri exists as more than a concept and Apple manages to deliver it by 2026, the bigger question remains: will it be too late by then?
The contextualized Siri was supposed to be the centerpiece of Apple’s AI efforts. For years, Siri has suffered from Apple’s neglect—once one of the first and best virtual assistants, it has since become an obsolete afterthought. But with the WWDC announcement, Siri finally seemed poised to reclaim its place at the forefront of virtual assistants. Now, with ongoing delays, it’s unclear if Apple can still make that happen in time to stay relevant.
While Apple has been struggling to get its AI ducks in a row, its competitors have been steadily improving their virtual assistants. Google, for instance, is already rolling out Gemini to replace Google Assistant on Android. Gemini is rapidly evolving, offering a conversational AI that feels more intuitive and context-aware. Unlike Siri, it can also perform actions directly on your Android phone, making it a true, fully functional assistant. As Apple continues to fall behind, Google’s progress could leave Siri playing catch-up for much longer.
Even Samsung’s Bixby has made impressive strides. Samsung’s Galaxy AI now handles natural language prompts like “My eyes hurt”, intuitively suggesting options to adjust display settings. Meanwhile, Apple’s Settings app struggles to return basic results for simple searches like “Messages”. It’s clear that natural language searches are nowhere near ready for iPhones anytime soon.
With ChatGPT and Gemini already showing what AI assistants are truly capable of, the question remains: what will keep Apple and Siri in the race? Even Apple’s ChatGPT integration into Siri feels disjointed and hardly offers any meaningful difference. Perhaps it’s time for Apple to forget about developing its own LLM and simply buy OpenAI. How else could they possibly close the growing gap with their competitors? It seems like an increasingly impossible question.
Avoiding a Crisis of Faith
The company is now facing a full-blown crisis that goes beyond just crashing stocks and disappointing shareholders. It’s dealing with a crisis of faith from even its most loyal fans. The once-unshakable confidence in Apple’s ability to deliver groundbreaking technology is now being called into question, and the delay of key AI features like the new Siri has left many wondering if the company can still lead the way in innovation.
There’s no doubt that Apple is now scrambling to contain the fallout from this crisis. Along with issuing a statement about the delays to Siri, Apple has also added disclaimers about the delay on their website and quietly pulled an iPhone 16 ad from YouTube, which had prominently showcased the new Siri features.
To be honest, it was a huge misstep for Apple to market the iPhone 16 lineup with Apple Intelligence features, particularly the Siri overhaul, when the phone otherwise lacked significant updates. It was a serious violation of the trust users placed in the company to promote a feature that wasn’t ready to ship, especially when months have passed and it still hasn’t materialized.
If Apple wants to regain trust, it needs to do more than just issue statements or add disclaimers on its website. I’m not asking them to ship a half-baked product — we’ve seen enough of those since iOS 18. What Apple really needs is more transparency about what’s going on behind the scenes. At this point, a few demonstrations are necessary to prove that the new Siri exists as something more than just a concept. Without that, the skepticism will only continue to grow.
On top of everything, Apple is reportedly planning a major redesign with iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16. Right now, it feels like the company might be trying to distract users from its AI failures by offering a shiny new redesign. But if this redesign doesn’t include substantial changes under the hood to integrate Apple Intelligence at the OS level, maybe Apple should just skip it altogether. There’s no amount of UI tweaks that could compensate for the absolute circus AI at Apple has turned into. The company needs to focus on fixing its core AI issues before worrying about superficial changes.
