The Siri crisis shows no signs of ending. A high-profile commentator has launched a sharp attack on it, and even senior Apple executives have admitted that the delayed features are embarrassing. At this point, Apple can’t do much to fully recover from this embarrassment, but at least an internal meeting report from the Siri team has suggested a possible way to minimize the damage…
The Siri Crisis
Apple recently had to admit that the plans for three new Siri features are “taking longer than we initially thought”—without any real explanation or new delivery dates. As we mentioned at the time, these are the very features that promised to make Siri truly intelligent:
- Personal context (like understanding questions such as “When will my mom’s flight land?”)
- On-screen awareness (like being able to do things like “Add this address to her contact card”)
- In-app actions (for example, “Make this photo pop and add it to my Miami 2025 notes”)
The company has quietly removed an iPhone 16 ad promoting these features and added new disclaimers to its website. Many loyalty critics have spent criticism of the company by putting out such functionalities that do not exist; even John Gruber, to whom Apple provides statements, found this matter troubling.
When Apple is not sure whether it would be able to ship these expected features with iOS 19, the problem is not likely to get solved anytime soon.
But there’s a way to minimize the damage
The biggest accusation against Apple has been that it’s acting like an AI startup—showing concept videos of features that don’t actually exist yet. However, a Bloomberg report suggested that this isn’t entirely accurate.
Walker said the decision to delay the features was made due to quality concerns, and the company found that the technology only worked correctly about two-thirds to 80% of the time—meaning it doesn’t work every time. He mentioned that the team could make more progress to increase those percentages so that users would get something they could truly rely on.
Now, it’s possible that the phrase “up to” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence. But giving a range of two-thirds to four-fifths suggests that the features work most of the time.
Please don’t misunderstand me: this kind of hit-rate is absolutely unacceptable for a released product or even a public beta. But considering that the public perception now is that these features exist only in concept videos, I think showing that they do exist—even if imperfectly—could only be a positive move for Apple.
What Apple Should do?
Invite some members of the media for a private demo of the new Siri features.
Honestly, show real-life performance that demonstrates these features work correctly 67%-80% of the time. Let the press see that the new Siri is far more than a concept video.
But also show what happens when it doesn’t work, explain why it can’t be released just yet, and share what the company is working on to resolve these issues.
I know Apple doesn’t like to show work-in-progress features. It prefers to keep things under wraps until it’s ready to unveil the final product with some “magic.” But for the new Siri, that ship has already sailed. The company has already revealed it. It was a mistake, perhaps driven by frustration or optimism, but what’s done is done.
Where we are now, even generally sympathetic voices are expressing doubts and frustration. At this point, the only benefit of showing is that the new Siri is not just an abstract idea, but a real-world feature that works most of the time, though still not ready for public release. By taking this step, Apple could regain its lost credibility.
