Poor old Siri. Apple's infamous voice assistant has had a bumpy few years, with competitors like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant racing ahead. And then came the advent of AI, threatening to further relegate Siri to irrelevance.
Last year, Apple responded to the threat with big talk. The headline of the company's Apple Intelligence announcements was a new and improved Siri – but over a year later she remains missing in action. Many (including internally at Apple) have accused the brand of botching its AI roll-out – but rumour has it the long-awaited update will finally arrive with iOS 26.4 next year.
But new reports suggest Apple still hasn't manage to stick the landing. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance.
Gurman doesn't go into more detail, but the suggestion that Siri still isn't performing properly is enough to set alarm bells ringing.
Apple's Siri debacle is embarrassing for the company for a couple of reasons. Firstly, those false promises about the arrival of the new tech last year were uncharacteristically misleading, demonstrating the danger of companies advertising features that are due to arrive at some point in the future rather than with the hardware itself.
And then there's the fact that even before the broken AI promises, Siri was lagging behind. Ever asked a question only to be met with a response of "I'm sorry, I don't understand"? Of course you have.
Time will tell whether those rumoured concerns turn out to be unfounded or otherwise. But one thing's for sure; if Apple fails to deliver the goods with Siri yet again, it's going to be a particularly bad look for the company.
