Tim Cook says the new Siri is still on track – and Apple might finally make it up to you

The Apple Intelligence-powered Siri is yet to debut, and it’s been pretty controversial ever since its existence was announced, promises were given, and then they weren’t followed through with. Now, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has reportedly said that the promised Siri will arrive on time in 2026, which could indicate that Apple is back on track. 

Apple Intelligence-powered Siri should arrive on time

Tim Cook reportedly said that he believes the Apple Intelligence features are on track for their anticipated 2026 rollout. This is actually very promising, because it’s been a while since the Cupertino tech giant has given any sort of timeline after the failure to deliver on the promised contextual Siri. Of course, obviously, “2026” is not a precise deadline, but it’s concrete enough for us to believe that Apple may have finally managed to solve the issues that initially stalled Apple Intelligence development. 

The promises and delays of Apple’s contextual Siri 

Back during WWDC 2024, Apple announced Apple Intelligence. During the developer conference, the Cupertino tech giant advertised a super-powerful contextual Siri, powered by generative AI, that will get to know you. 

All in all, it sounded so sci-fi and too good to be true… and it ended up being, at least so far. 

Basically, Apple has had to postpone the Apple Intelligence-powered Siri; it even had to remove the ad about the iPhone 16 coming with that Siri. It didn’t make it on time to be launched with the iPhone 17 series as well, but at least Apple didn’t claim it would this time around. 

On top of all of that, Apple was already somewhat late to the AI game in comparison to competitors such as Samsung and Google, and it’s slower to release new features as well. 

It’s now more than a year after the initial announcement for the contextual Siri, and it’s still not here. Apparently, that advanced personal assistant was delayed because Apple had found that it wasn’t up to par with its standards. 

Reportedly, the contextual Siri worked properly about two-thirds of the time. Obviously, not the level of quality that the Cupertino tech giant is used to offering its customers. So, for now, we’ll have to wait more, but at least Tim Cook is now confident enough to give us the year and confirm that things are going according to plan. Hopefully this time around, there won’t be disappointment from Apple’s fans. 

I am really interested in the context-aware, personalized Siri 

I still remember how excited I got during Apple’s WWDC presentation in 2024. The examples that Cupertino had given of that personal, context-aware Siri were seriously epic to me, and I was even considering upgrading to the iPhone 16 even though I really didn’t need to upgrade at the time, just to get that real personal assistant. Obviously, when that Siri didn’t come, I got pretty disappointed, and as time went on, it became even more frustrating. Siri, at the moment, is so annoying as a digital assistant that I barely use it for anything other than to tell it “yes” if it asks me if I want to pick up the phone when I’m wearing my AirPods and out and about. 

I think in 2025, Apple’s digital assistant should be seriously more capable. We now have ChatGPT and other AI models that you can talk with about plenty of things and receive adequate responses… and Siri’s stuck in, what, 2016? 

Hopefully, 2026 is the year that Apple makes it up to me, and to other Apple fans, with that revamped and seriously cool Siri.