The Siri improvements promised by Apple at WWDC24 last June could arrive on our iPhones sooner than expected. According to the latest information from Mark Gurman, a journalist known for his reliable sources within the Apple company, the deployment of certain features related to Apple Intelligence would be ahead of the initial schedule. Enough to delight users impatient to benefit from a more efficient and proactive voice assistant.
Next-generation Siri: an early partial release
The major Siri overhaul, incorporating Apple Intelligence capabilities, may not be available in its entirety right away. But we may well get a taste of it sooner than early announcements have suggested. With the iPhone 16 coming out, it’s going to be urgent for Apple to actually deliver on the promised new features.
According to the newsletter Power On by Mark Gurmansome of Siri’s new features could be coming as early as iOS 18.3, while they were expected to arrive in iOS 18.4. In practical terms, this means that users could start enjoying Siri’s improvements as early as January, instead of having to wait until March.
iOS 18: a busy schedule until 2025
Beyond the specific case of Siri, Mark Gurman also shared information on the planning of future versions of iOS 18. Thus, iOS 18.1 (currently in beta), which will bring a first wave of new features related to Apple Intelligence, should be finalized internally this week for a release in mid-October.
This update will notably include an initial redesign of the Siri interface, faster responses, as well as writing tools, the photo cleanup functionality and notification summaries.
Then comes iOS 18.2 in December, with the expected integration of Image Playground to create faces from descriptions, Genmoji to generate personalized emoji, and ChatGPT to converse more naturally with Siri.
iOS 18.3 is scheduled for January, while iOS 18.4, which should mark the arrival of the new Siri in its most advanced version, is expected for March. A busy schedule for Apple, which seems determined to keep its promises in terms of artificial intelligence.
As a reminder, this deployment schedule only concerns the United States initially, then English-speaking users in other countries. Apple Intelligence should arrive in new languages including French in 2025, without Apple having provided further details.
With a Siri capable of better understanding natural language, integrating with third-party apps, taking into account context and analyzing what is displayed on the screen, Apple hopes to transform its voice assistant into a true proactive and efficient personal assistant.
This acceleration of the deployment schedule shows that Apple is aware of the expectations raised by its announcements and wants to realize its vision of AI at the service of the user as quickly as possible. It remains to be seen whether the next-generation Siri will live up to expectations once in our hands.
