Apple’s annual WWDC developer conference is almost here, and it’s shaping up to be an important one. Not just for iOS, which is taking another step forward into a rumored redesigned iOS 19—er—iOS 26, or for iPadOS, which just got WhatsApp right on time, or even for visionOS, the operating system for Apple’s seemingly sidelined Vision Pro headset that is still awaiting a rumored cheaper version.
Put all of those expected updates aside for a moment, because Apple actually has bigger fish to fry this year, and no iOS redesign will be enough to distract from the big, pink, AI-shaped elephant in the room. It’s time to talk about AI Siri, or the lack thereof. In case you haven’t been keeping track, Apple Intelligence has had some struggles since Apple’s launch in October 2024, and the most notable of those stumbles is arguably its LLM-powered Siri voice assistant, which, to date, still hasn’t made its debut.
As Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in March, Apple has delayed its Siri upgrade indefinitely after trying and failing to get its Apple Intelligence centerpiece up to snuff. “…Apple was struggling to finish developing the features and the enhancements would be postponed until at least May when iOS 18.5 is due to arrive,” Bloomberg wrote in March. “Since then, Apple engineers have been racing to fix a rash of bugs in the project. The work has been unsuccessful, according to people involved in the efforts, and they now believe the features won’t be released until next year at the earliest.”
Listen, things happen, products get delayed, and plans go awry, but that’s not necessarily what makes Apple’s Siri stumble interesting; it’s that the issue may be indicative of the company’s struggles with developing next-gen AI in general, and given the way things are going in the tech world right now, that’s decidedly bad for business. Apple has already started its journey into integrating generative AI and LLM-powered features into its products from a position that’s well behind competitors. That’s not unusual—Apple is known for a more wait-and-see approach—but when the wait-and-see is coupled with struggles out of the gate, eyebrows tend to raise. That’s exactly where we’re at now.
And given those very public struggles and the pressure to amend them, WWDC 2025 may come with higher stakes than usual, not just to move the entire iOS ecosystem forward in a substantive way, but to set the record straight on Apple’s acumen in the still very volatile world of AI. Does Apple have the brainpower and vision to set a course for Apple Intelligence, or has the AI/ML team in charge of the features earned the internal nickname reportedly bestowed by the company’s fellow engineers? That nickname, by the way, is AIMLess. Ouch…
The good news for Apple is that, for the most part, the pressure is more optical than consequential at this point. Most people, despite the business emphasis on generative AI and LLMs, aren’t fixated on their phones, laptops, or tablets having those AI features. In fact, recent polling from CNET about whether people with iPhones or Samsung phones actually use or want AI features seems to suggest that interest is tepid at best. According to a poll from December 2024, an overwhelming number of people (73% of iPhone users and 87% of Samsung users, to be exact) who can use AI on their devices say that they think the features add little to no value to their general phone experience.
For that reason, I’m not going to call WWDC 2025 a make-or-break moment for Apple’s AI features by any means, but it’s also not a complete write-off either. While Apple figures out a way to set its course straight, other competitors like Samsung and Google seem to be plowing ahead and throwing AI features at the wall. Most of those are frankly small potatoes right now, but that may not be the case for long. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still skeptical of AI’s long-term impact on our gadgets and lives in general, but given the amount of capital and attention on AI, that could all soon change. And if Apple is behind for another year, then that makes it even harder to catch up.
Still, it’s more about optics, and if I were a betting man, I’d put money on Apple shifting the emphasis on its alleged flashy redesign of iOS and hoping the attention stays on the things that it is doing as opposed to what’s missing. And maybe iOS will be enough to steal the show. Early rumors suggest there’s a big visual overhaul coming that’s inspired by visionOS, and lord knows I’m a sucker for a vibe shift. There are also rumors of a gaming hub that unifies Apple gaming across platforms and features like improved battery management that may give your device some extra juice. I’m sure there will be a lot to sort through once WWDC 2025 is actually underway next week, and I’m sure much of it will be additive and maybe even fun, but the fact remains: Apple won’t be able to hide from its AI missteps for long, and the developer conference may be the perfect time to rip that Siri-shaped band-aid off.
