Apple’s Big Siri Update May Not Be Ready for iOS 26.4

Apple may have delayed the release of its much-anticipated Siri update… again. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is reporting that the company ran into issues while testing the new AI features internally, and releasing all of them next month alongside iOS 26.4 is no longer on the cards.

Gurman previously reported that iOS 26.4 would mark the release of a new version of Siri powered by Google’s Gemini model, with a “full Siri overhaul” coming later this year with iOS 27. Now, some of the new Siri features Apple planned for iOS 26.4 may not be ready until iOS 26.5, which is expected to be released in May. Some of these features could also be delayed to iOS 27.

“In recent days, Apple instructed engineers to use the upcoming iOS 26.5 in order to test new Siri features, implying that the functionality may have been moved back by at least one release,” Gurman explained. “One feature is especially likely to slip: the expanded ability for Siri to tap into personal data. That technology would let users ask the assistant to, say, search old text messages to locate a podcast shared by a friend and immediately play it.

Gurman revealed that app intents, a new system allowing Siri to execute complex actions across multiple apps, may also be delayed due to reliability and speed issues. “As recently as late 2025, internal versions of the new Siri were so sluggish that people involved in development believed the company would need to delay the introduction by months,” Gurman wrote.

Apple first advertised an upgraded Siri with onscreen awareness and the ability to leverage user and on-device information back at WWDC 2024, but shipping these features has proved to be much more complex than expected. That what’s led Apple to embrace Google’s Gemini models to revamp its Siri assistant. However, even with Google’s help, the company can’t afford to ship an unreliable version of Siri after nearly 2 years of delays.