The report suggests that internal testing with the new Siri has not gone well, and some features, including access to personal data, are likely to be pushed back to iOS 26.5 and iOS 27.
News about AI and Apple has been an endless treasure trove of doomcasting for the company, but vague details about delays regarding unannounced products are nothing new. After rethinking its Apple Intelligence features promised during WWDC 2024, Apple has put personalized intelligence on hold in hopes that it could be better refined in the following year.
According to a report from BloombergAnonymous tipsters who have information regarding the development of improved Apple Intelligence suggest that some features may be delayed again. These include Siri’s ability to access a user’s personal data, but the details of that delay are unclear.
As we said on AppleInsider many times before, anonymous tipsters have tended to leak information when they have an axis to grind on. We have no idea how old the information is, why it was shared, or if it even reflects what’s going on inside.
Reported problems
It was always unusual for these kinds of reports to classify such things as “delays” when they were never publicly announced. Only industry experts and internal teams might classify them as delays, but that’s actually how development works.
Some things ship as expected, some don’t. Painting this as a growing internal failure seems odd, since the same language isn’t used when Apple’s competitors make similar mistakes.
Tipsters say some features may come in iOS 26.5 or be pushed back to iOS 27. The report says a key issue is that “Siri doesn’t always handle queries correctly or may take too long to process requests.”
Feature flags for iOS 26.5 show a “preview” feature for customization features, but that may not actually mean the feature has been delayed. There are many more toggles available to Apple’s internal teams, not to mention the feature could be running in beta.
The report also claims that the way app intents connect to Apple’s redesigned Intelligence system could also be pushed back. Siri also seems to have a tendency to turn off the speakers when she speaks too fast or has trouble processing complex queries.
It would be very strange for both of these features to be missing from iOS 26.4, which has been highly reported as the release with the new Apple Intelligence. These features make up the entire backend of the new system, so their delay would seemingly delay everything, contradicting reports of an imminent launch from the same publication.
Infighting can be a bad sign, but it’s what gets published that matters
It also seems that the new system keeps reverting to ChatGPT integration, even though it’s not necessary, but that could also be a bug. These reports lack any details about when these errors occurred, beyond “latest January” or “late 2025 internal models.”
It’s an internal pre-public beta, there will be some hiccups.
Approaching start
As always, the only way we can judge Apple’s efforts with the new Apple Intelligence and Siri is once the actual announcement is made. Everything before that is speculation tinged with a desire to convey a narrative.
All Apple has publicly promised is that the revamped Apple Intelligence and Siri will arrive in 2026. They have internal targets for spring and iOS 26.4, and something is still being launched then, but the word “delay” is doing a lot of hard work here to call it a failure.
If iOS 26.4 and its features are disappointing, then there might be something to this doom and gloom report. If not, we can only speculate as to which features were used – perhaps those related to AI and Apple Health.