Apple on Wednesday pushed out the second public betas of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27 to members of its public beta testing program. The updates arrive roughly one week after the first public betas and continue Apple’s focus on refining its next-generation software ahead of the expected September launch.
Major Siri AI Upgrades Across Platforms
The most significant highlight across both releases is the expansion of Siri AI, Apple’s more intelligent, context-aware assistant.
• On iPhone and iPad, Siri AI can search the web, access personal information, understand what’s on your screen, and perform actions across apps. It now resembles conversational AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT, complete with a dedicated Siri app for extended interactions. These capabilities require a device that supports Apple Intelligence.
• On Apple Watch, Siri AI brings similar smarts to your wrist. Users can ask questions, get answers based on personal data, and complete tasks directly from the watch. A new dedicated Siri app sits prominently in the updated dynamic app grid that appears when pressing the Digital Crown.
iOS 27 & iPadOS 27 Highlights
Apple has continued polishing the Liquid Glass design introduced last year, adding a new slider to control transparency levels and making further visual refinements. New AI-powered tools appear throughout the system:
• Enhanced photo editing in the Photos app
• Automatic tab organization in Safari
• Natural language creation of Shortcuts and Safari extensions
• Visual Intelligence now integrated into the Camera app (with features like meal nutrition analysis and bill splitting)
• “Write with Siri” for text generation and refinement
Other notable additions include custom EQ for AirPods, 4K video camera support in the Home app, improved parental controls, and broad performance enhancements that make apps launch faster, AirDrop transfers quicker, and the overall experience snappier—even on older iPhones.
watchOS 27 Highlights
The watch update emphasizes convenience and fitness improvements:
• New gesture for selecting widgets in the Smart Stack
• Smart Stack suggestions for parked car location, transit cards, and birthdays
• Workout Buddy that works independently of the iPhone
• More accurate treadmill run/walk distance tracking
• Unified Find My app with Precision Finding support
tvOS 27 brings a redesigned Podcasts app, Hi-Res Lossless audio and AutoMix in Apple Music, faster app launches, and quicker AirPlay connections.
How to Install the Public Betas
Sign up for the Apple Public Beta Program at beta.apple.com.
On your device, go to Settings > General > Software Update and install the available beta.
MacDailyNews Note: As with all early beta software, users should back up their devices before installing and expect some bugs or battery life impacts during testing.
Apple is expected to continue seeding weekly or bi-weekly betas throughout the summer, with final versions arriving alongside new iPhones in September. For full details on new features, check MacRumors’ dedicated roundups for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27.
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Ready for a glimpse into our future as Apple users? Public betas for macOS 27 Golden Gate, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and other major Apple operating systems are now available—but beware of bugs and be sure to back up your devices first.
iOS 27 beta 4 for iPhone, and iPadOS 27 beta 4 for iPad, have been released for users engaged in the OS 27 developer beta system software testing programs. A concurrent public beta testing program is also now ongoing, though those betas are typically delayed a day or few behind dev betas, but otherwise match ... Read More
Apple has finally completed its silicon transition: macOS 27 drops all Intel-based Macs, and iPadOS 27 and watchOS 27 each leave five models by the wayside, whereas the iPhone compatibility list remains unchanged.
Apple on Monday released the fourth developer betas of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate (macOS 27), continuing the rapid beta cycle following the company’s announcements at WWDC 2026. The new builds arrive exactly two weeks after the third betas, signaling steady progress toward the expected public releases this fall.
How to Download
Registered developers can obtain the updates directly on their devices:
• iOS 27 / iPadOS 27: Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
• macOS Golden Gate: Go to System Settings > General > Software Update (with Beta Updates enabled and a developer account linked).
Major Features in This Cycle
Both platforms continue to emphasize Apple Intelligence and a refined user interface centered around the new Liquid Glass design language.
Siri AI takes center stage as a more capable, chatbot-style assistant. It combines general world knowledge, personal context from apps like Messages and Mail, and on-screen awareness to deliver smarter responses. A dedicated Siri app now stores conversation history, and system-wide Write with Siri helps generate or refine text. On the Mac, users can also create custom voices with personalized pace and expressivity. Visual Intelligence has been enhanced and relocated (to the Camera app on iOS and integrated into the desktop on macOS) for better contextual understanding of what’s on screen.
Design and Performance Improvements include:
• Enhanced Liquid Glass with better opacity, readability, and a new transparency slider.
• Refined window shadows, uniform toolbars, edge-to-edge sidebars, and subtler rounded corners on macOS.
• Faster app launching, quicker keyboard appearance, improved AirDrop speeds, and smoother Wi-Fi-to-cellular handoffs across iOS devices.
• Overall performance optimizations that make the system feel snappier, even on older hardware.
Apple Intelligence Expansions add new capabilities in Photos, Safari (AI tab organization), Wallet, Passwords (automatic weak password updates), Shortcuts, and the revamped Image Playground app, which now supports photorealistic image generation.
MacDailyNews Take: With beta 4 now available, Apple is expected to continue refining stability, battery life, and features in the coming weeks. A public beta is likely to follow soon, ahead of the official launch of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate in September.
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Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants.
[…]
EU users will be able to access Siri AI on macOS 27 and visionOS 27. Developers located in the EU will not be able to test or use the new Siri AI features for their apps on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27.
[…]
According to EU regulators, the DMA requires Apple to give any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act on that access autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control.
[…]
Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.
This phrasing is not very clear, perhaps intentionally so. Apple is trying to give the impression that it did all this extra work to meet the DMA’s requirements, and yet the EC rejected its proposals, so it’s their fault Siri AI isn’t shipping in the EU. But it looks like the crux is that the Trusted System Agent is currently vaporware. What the EC rejected is that Apple wanted to be able to ship Siri AI now on the promise of future openness. The TSA would actually be built during this 18-month window of exclusivity. It’s not surprising that the EU would reject that proposal. The App Store doesn’t approve apps that flout the guidelines but promise to comply later. It doesn’t even entertain proposals of the form, “If I built this would it be approved?”
Apple said it detailed its plans for Siri AI to EU regulators six months ago, along with a technical proposal to allow secure third-party access to that data.
“In essence, a commission that’s asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, many, many tens of millions of users,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, told reporters, “and we only want to ship these capabilities when we can do so safely.”
The EU said not to ship it without the TSA, yet Joswiak spins this as the EU asking Apple to be reckless? And if Apple wanted to ship them safely, why did it stop working on them?
Apple spoke of having spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours on changes to comply with the EU. In the new report, though, Apple now says that it no longer knows what to work on.
So currently none of its engineers are working on adapting Siri AI to meet the EU’s demands.
It seems like Apple isn’t taking this very seriously. They’re more interested in trying to score PR points by blaming the delay on the EC rather than on building something compliant. So I guess the EC was prescient not to grant an exemption based on the promise that they’d follow through with the TSA.
However, do I think Apple should be made to open up that level of system access?
Honestly yes. They are worried about protecting my data. But it’s MINE. Me, the user.
Stick a big privacy prompt, maybe a system settings screen and reboot, but I want access to my data!
We can look to BrowserEngineKit to see how well it works out to introduce a trusted intermediate layer that Apple doesn’t itself rely on. And this seems like a much harder problem.
I keep seeing people (usually Americans) confused by where the EU is coming from with Apple and the DMA, eg “how can they care about privacy but also demand AI companies can access your data?”
My read is, the EU’s starting point is that a gatekeeper cannot treat itself as inherently more trustworthy than any other company. So if anyone’s AI can access your data, including Apple’s, it’s not up to the gatekeeper to say “we trust ourselves but don’t trust other companies” and force that on users.
The users should get to choose who they trust. And I think Apple is trying to draw a different line than it says. It worries that AI could be hijacked to steal your passwords and photos. But you can already install apps that manage and access that data. You can also install apps that access your calendar and mail data, and these apps can incorporate AI. Such apps actually get more access than what the EC wants because they must communicate with your servers directly. I would rather let an AI search my downloaded e-mails than read/write to my IMAP server, but Apple is blocking that option. The actual line it’s drawing isn’t that AI can’t access your data but that (aside from iMessage) it can only access it via additional engineering work and additional hoops for users to enter credentials. It seems like what Apple really wants is to make it hard for anyone to compete with Siri.
I’m skeptical that Siri AI is even capable of being meaningfully private or secure. As far as I know there is no mitigation for prompt injection, as Matthew Green describes here.
If it has access to private information, is exposed to external input and can access the Internet then how can they meaningfully claim it’s private or secure?
There’s a lot to unpack here, including more background information — and on-the-record statements — from a briefing Apple held Tuesday that I was invited to at Apple Park.
It’s frustrating that Apple has said so little on the record. They want to communicate that their “offers for compromise have been rejected,” but what exactly did they offer? Personally, I don’t think the TSA would be a very good solution because it would lock in both the limitations of Apple’s technology and their role as a gatekeeper. But Apple did not even say that the EC rejected the idea of the TSA, only that it rejected their proposal to violate the law for 18 months while building it.
But the bottom line is that Apple’s public statements regarding the DMA and the European Commission have never been this strident before.
[…]
Now, they’re a bit more on war footing. There’s a massive gulf between what Apple is willing to do with Siri AI in the EU and what the Commission is demanding from Apple for DMA compliance.
The European Commission isn’t demanding anything, the law is demanding it. The laws have been in place for several years now, Apple is currently in default of the law on several fronts, and is fighting its existing fines.
When the Chinese government wanted access to user data, Apple complied, but when the EU parliament voted for their citizens to be able to choose how to share their own data, that put Apple on a “war footing.”
There is some kind of irony in how Apple isn’t allowing Europe access to the new AI stuff; and meanwhile for the US, Apple is removing the setting for us to opt-out of it, effectively forcing it on us.
That’s how it is these days, huh? Either a government or a giant corporation makes our technology choices for us. We don’t get to choose for ourselves.
What exactly is the motivation for Apple and Google to engineer entirely separate systems for the EU to bring new features into compliance with the Commission’s broad interpretation of the DMA? Because if Apple doesn’t engineer a DMA-compliant version of Siri AI, iOS users in the EU will ... switch to Android, whose system-level AI was deemed noncompliant by the Commission a few months ago?
I briefly hoped that the DMA would lead to a sort of California effect for software, where products are designed for the stricter (more open, in this case) jurisdiction, and everyone else reaps the benefits, too, because that’s easier for companies than making separate versions of their products. But it turns out that Apple finds it well worth it to feature flag away the EU features it doesn’t want us to have, as well as the ones it doesn’t want to adapt for the DMA.
This doesn’t directly hurt Apple. It doesn’t force Apple to design, engineer, and ship a compliant EU-exclusive version of Siri AI that supports plug-and-play LLM back ends. It only hurts iPhone users who live in the EU, who are stuck with the old dumb version of Siri for the foreseeable future.
This demonstrates a market failure or legislative failure, depending on how you look at it. Both halves of the duopoly are in conflict with the law of the second largest economy in the word. Users will get a worse Siri, but this doesn’t bother Apple enough to do anything about it. Maybe the customers in the EU can be used as a bargaining chip. Neither Apple nor Google is worried that a competitor will come along with a compliant phone to challenge their dominance.
Gotta admit that as an EU citizen, I feel handicapped when it comes to brainstorming ideas to utilize Foundation Models.
Like, if I were to build a new app around them, it’s difficult to gauge if this is something Siri AI does out of the box when it isn’t available to me.
And unlike Apple, I intend to build software for the entire world.
Apple is acting out of greed and spite (see their hairbrained fee structures for alternative marketplaces as an example), but also yes, the DMA and enforcement thereof seems like a particularly difficult and capricious regulatory dynamic.
[…]
Those arguing that Apple is acting purely out of spite seem to suggest there is some obvious solution for iPhone Mirroring that would satisfy the interoperability mandate, but they never go into what that obvious solution is because they don’t know. They don’t know because I would guess no one does, not even Apple and certainly not the European Commission.
As far as I can tell, the European Commission doesn’t see it as their responsibility to help gatekeepers design features ahead of time in a way that should be compliant with the DMA. What they want instead is to decide whether or not a given feature runs afoul of the DMA after its released in the EU and presumably after they’ve gotten feedback from third parties.
If a developer emails Apple and asks if an app idea they have will be approved, they will get told to build it, submit it to the App Store, and see. The EU is the App Store here, and Siri AI is the app. I guess Apple don’t like their own policies.
I sympathize, even though Apple is in a better position than the developer, because it has more resources, because it would only potentially be blocked from shipping in one market, and because it can still sell its product in the EU, just with certain features disabled. Building something that might not be accepted is risky, but if you don’t submit anything that you think would be complaint with the rules, you don’t seem very serious. It’s still unclear to me exactly what Apple’s plan is. Its press release says it “will continue working” on bringing the features to the EU, but its SVP of marketing said in an interview that “none of its engineers are currently working on solutions.” Perhaps this implies that it’s banking on a legal or political solution rather than a technical one.
While the relationship between the European Commission and Google tells us nothing about playing ball, it tells us exactly how inconsequential support for alternative marketplaces is when it comes to regulatory scrutiny of integrated features. Apple hasn’t played ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are being withheld from the EU lest they get scrutinized for fines by the European Commission. Google hasn’t had to play ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are either being scrutinized for fines by the European Commission or being withheld lest they also get scrutinized. The European Commission is, rightly so in my opinion, regulating both operating systems equally and regardless of their support for alternative marketplaces.
It struck me today what a contrast this is with the rest of the AI world, increasingly connected via MCP. Imagine if Gmail was only accessible to AI on Android phones. If Teams was only accessible from a Windows Surface laptop. That is the kind of environment Apple’s policies create, with data locked into silos and monopolies free to leverage their existing strengths into dominance of new technologies too.
No thanks. Just as I should be able to sideload an app onto my own phone, I should be able to choose whether ChatGPT can access my iMessage history. The world is not going to come crashing down by giving users control of their own data.
Apple CEO Tim Cook held “constructive” talks with EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen on Tuesday about releasing Siri AI in the bloc while complying with the bloc’s digital rules, reports the Financial Times ($).
[…]
As for Apple’s proposed Trusted System Agent, a Commission official told the publication its contact with Apple on the idea was limited, and that it lacked a concrete proposal or details on how such an agent would work beyond the general concept. The official claimed Apple “focused on obtaining a green light to delay compliance.”
The DMA has been in effect for nearly four years and there is no reason why either party should be having so much difficulty with this proposal stage. Either the Commission is mischaracterizing Apple’s engagement, or Apple’s representatives need to be far better prepared.
It seems like Apple’s strategy is to encourage its customers to pressure the EU into changing the rules.
Desenvolvedores já podem instalar as quartas versões de teste do iOS 27 (compilação 24A5390f), iPadOS 27 (idem), macOS Golden Gate 27 (26A5388g), watchOS 27 (24R5325h), tvOS 27 (24J5325d) e visionOS 27 (24M5326g).
Além dos sistemas, também está disponível para desenvolvedores a quarta beta do Xcode 27 (compilação 27A5228h).
Os novos sistemas, anunciados na WWDC26, trarão novidades e diversas melhorias para iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, Apple TVs e Vision Pros — conforme temos acompanhado e detalhado no apanhado de matérias abaixo.
Como de costume, nós estamos de olho para conferir as novidades incluídas com as novas betas e detalharemos tudo sobre elas por aqui, então continuem acompanhando!
Now that the public beta for iOS 27 is available, even more iPhone and iPad users are going to be interested in experiencing the new operating systems while they’re under active development. And there’s good reason for this, iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 are both shaping up to be notable improvements to the operating systems, ... Read More
Apple has launched the public beta program for iOS 27, making the upcoming iPhone operating system available as a beta to all interested users. Beta system software tends to be buggier and less refined than final versions, and is generally best reserved for advanced users, but the public beta is fairly stable, and made available ... Read More
Apple has released iOS 27 beta 3 for iPhone users who are participating in the beta testing program. iPadOS 27 beta 3 is also available for iPad based beta testers. iOS 27 and iPadOS have an emphasis on performance, with improvements to general system performance, a slider for adjusting Liquid Glass intensity to the appearance, ... Read More
Safari Notify Me gives Apple’s browser a useful new role in online shopping: watching a product page after the shopper has closed it. Instead of repeatedly returning to check whether an item is available or whether its price has changed, users can ask Safari to monitor the page and send an alert when the requested update appears.
The feature arrives as online shopping becomes increasingly fragmented. Prices can change several times during a promotion, popular items disappear within minutes and retailers often require shoppers to join separate mailing lists for availability alerts. Dedicated tracking apps can help, but each adds another account, extension or subscription.
Safari Notify Me places the monitoring tool inside the browser already being used to view the product. It is simple enough for occasional purchases while potentially useful for expensive electronics, limited releases, event registrations and products that move in and out of stock.
Safari Notify Me Watches the Page for You
Safari Notify Me is designed to monitor changes on a specific webpage. The user identifies what should be watched, such as a lower price, a product returning to stock or registration becoming available. Safari then checks the page and sends a notification after detecting the relevant change.
Apple has presented price changes and product restocks as central examples, though the feature is not restricted to shopping. It may also help with reservations, ticket availability, enrollment openings or other pages where one detail changes over time.
For shopping, the advantage is immediate. A customer can leave the product page without relying on memory, leaving dozens of tabs open or refreshing the site throughout the day.
The browser becomes temporarily responsible for the follow-up.
This differs from a retailer’s own email alert. Store notifications usually depend on the business offering the feature, and they may focus only on inventory. Safari can monitor the page according to the user’s request, potentially covering price and availability without requiring another marketing subscription.
Image Credit: Pond5
How Safari Price Alerts Help
Online prices are rarely as stable as the label suggests. Retailers adjust discounts, respond to competitors, launch short promotions and change prices according to stock levels.
A shopper interested in a Mac accessory, appliance or expensive display may not want to purchase immediately at the listed price. Checking the page every day is inefficient, while joining a store mailing list can produce far more promotional email than useful information.
Safari price alerts create a quieter alternative. The user can identify the product and wait for the browser to report a meaningful change.
The feature does not replace price history. Safari may detect that the amount has dropped, but that does not necessarily prove the new price is the lowest offered during the year. Dedicated price-tracking services may still provide charts, comparisons and retailer-specific history.
Safari Notify Me is better understood as a page-change assistant. It tells the shopper that something requested has happened. The decision to purchase remains with the user.
Restock Alerts May Be Even More Useful
Restock monitoring may become the feature’s strongest shopping use. Limited products can return without warning and sell out before a retailer’s email reaches every subscriber.
This often happens with game consoles, graphics hardware, collectibles, seasonal products, concert merchandise and popular configurations of newly released devices. Size and color variations can also return separately, making a general product alert less useful.
Safari restock alerts can focus on the page the user is already viewing. A notification provides a reason to return without requiring the tab to remain open.
The browser cannot reserve the item or guarantee that inventory will remain available. A notification may also arrive after other buyers have begun ordering. Safari removes the repeated checking, but it does not control the retailer’s inventory system.
That limitation is reasonable. Notify Me helps users notice the opportunity; it does not turn Safari into an automated purchasing bot.
Using Safari Notify Me
The feature is intended to require little setup. Users begin on the relevant product or registration page and tell Safari which change they want it to watch.
To create a Safari Notify Me alert:
Open the webpage in Safari > Select Notify Me > Describe the price, availability or page change to monitor > Allow Safari notifications when requested
The exact options shown may depend on the device, webpage and software version. Apple is introducing the feature with its new operating-system releases, and availability may vary by language or region.
A useful request should be specific. Asking Safari to report when the item returns to stock is more actionable than asking for any page change. For price monitoring, the user may request a reduction or watch for a particular target when the page supports enough information.
Once the alert is active, there is no need to keep the product page open. Safari sends a notification after detecting the requested update, allowing the user to return directly to the page.
A Better Use for Apple Intelligence
Safari Notify Me is a practical example of Apple Intelligence operating as an assistant rather than a writing tool. It interprets what the user wants, watches for a future condition and reports back when that condition appears.
The feature does not need to generate a long answer or place a chatbot beside every shopping page. Its value comes from removing a repetitive task.
That restrained approach fits Safari. The browser already manages passwords, private browsing, tab organization, Reader and tracking protections. Monitoring a page extends that utility without turning Safari into a retailer or shopping marketplace.
It may also reduce the need for third-party extensions among casual users. Someone who occasionally watches one product does not necessarily need a dedicated deal platform with wish lists, affiliate links and account registration.
Specialized services will remain useful for serious bargain hunting. Safari covers the simpler request: tell me when this exact page changes in the way I care about.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.
Notifications Need Restraint
Any feature built around alerts can become noisy when used too freely. Monitoring every product considered during casual browsing could fill Notification Center with price changes and restocks that no longer feel relevant.
Safari Notify Me works better when reserved for purchases with genuine intent. A few focused alerts are easier to understand and act upon than dozens of loosely defined page watches.
Users should also remove alerts after buying the item or losing interest. A notification for a product purchased weeks earlier adds clutter without saving time.
Safari notifications can be managed through the device’s normal notification settings. Disabling all Safari alerts may also silence other useful browser notifications, so reviewing individual watches inside Safari is preferable when available.
Price Is Not the Only Shopping Decision
A lower price can encourage a quick purchase, but shoppers should still review the seller, return policy, warranty and delivery estimate. Notify Me reports a page change; it does not evaluate whether the store is reliable or whether the offer has hidden conditions.
A product may return through a third-party marketplace seller at a higher price. A discount may apply only after a membership, coupon or trade-in. Limited inventory can also create pressure to buy before reading the terms.
Safari’s privacy protections and fraud warnings remain relevant, but users should confirm that the page belongs to the intended retailer before entering payment information.
The alert is a starting signal, not an endorsement.
Safari Becomes More Useful After the Tab Closes
Browsers traditionally stop being helpful once users leave a page. Safari Notify Me changes that relationship by allowing selected pages to remain useful without remaining visible.
For shoppers, that means fewer repeated searches, fewer forgotten products and less dependence on promotional email. Price and restock alerts can operate quietly until there is a reason to return.
The feature will not replace advanced shopping trackers, and it cannot guarantee inventory. Its appeal is that most users do not need those larger systems for every purchase.
Sometimes the entire shopping problem is waiting for one price to fall or one button to change from unavailable to buy. Safari Notify Me allows the browser to handle that wait.
Apple Intelligence on-device processing remains Apple’s most convincing argument in artificial intelligence. Rivals may lead in public model rankings, chatbot adoption and the speed of releasing experimental features, but Apple is building AI inside devices people already use for their most personal work.
That distinction changes the definition of winning.
Apple does not need every iPhone owner to open a separate chatbot app. It can place intelligence inside Messages, Mail, Photos, Notes, Shortcuts, Siri and third-party apps. Local models can operate on private information without automatically transferring that information to an external server.
The strategy appeared slow while the AI market measured progress through chatbot launches and model size. It looks more competitive as the industry confronts cloud costs, privacy concerns, unreliable connectivity and the difficulty of turning general-purpose AI into useful daily actions.
In his video “Apple Lost the AI Race,” Marques Brownlee captures the contradiction in one concise line:
“Apple lost the AI race. Actually, Apple won the AI race.”
The apparent reversal describes Apple’s current position well. Apple may have lost the first race for public perception. It is increasingly prepared for the longer contest over where AI runs, how it reaches users and who controls the personal data required to make it useful.
Apple Intelligence On-Device Changes the AI Relationship
Most popular generative AI products began as cloud services. A user sends a request to a remote model, the provider processes it in a data center and the answer returns through an app or browser.
That structure supports enormous models but creates dependence on internet access, server capacity and continuing infrastructure expense. It also means personal prompts leave the device, even when the provider uses strong security and privacy policies.
Apple Intelligence on-device begins from the opposite direction. The iPhone, iPad or Mac first attempts to handle the request locally using Apple Foundation Models optimized for Apple silicon.
That local model does not need to know everything available on the internet. It needs to understand the user’s request, work with relevant personal context and complete common tasks efficiently.
The difference is similar to owning a capable computer rather than renting every calculation from a distant server. Cloud systems remain useful for difficult workloads, but they no longer need to participate in every interaction.
For Apple, local processing is also a product advantage. The company controls the chip, operating system, model architecture, memory system and apps. Each layer can be designed around the others rather than assembled from unrelated services.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.
Privacy Becomes a Technical Feature
Technology companies frequently describe privacy as a policy. Apple is trying to make it part of the AI architecture.
When a request runs entirely on an iPhone, the associated data does not need to leave the device. A model can work with messages, appointments, photos or app content without uploading that personal context to a conventional cloud account.
That structure is especially relevant to Siri AI. A truly personal assistant needs access to information that users may never place willingly inside an ordinary chatbot: private conversations, travel plans, health-related details, work documents and relationships between people.
An assistant becomes more useful as it gains context. It also becomes more invasive when the same context is stored, analyzed or used for model training outside the device.
Apple Intelligence on-device allows Apple to expand personal context while maintaining a stronger boundary around it. The assistant can understand information locally, perform an action and discard temporary processing data without building a permanent advertising or training profile.
This is difficult for competitors whose businesses depend on cloud services, large-scale data collection or engagement inside separate AI products. Apple’s hardware business gives it different incentives.
Private Cloud Compute Extends the Model
Not every AI task can fit within the power and memory limits of an iPhone. Apple uses Private Cloud Compute when a request requires a larger model.
Private Cloud Compute is designed to extend the privacy architecture of Apple devices into the cloud. User information is processed only for the request, is not stored and is not made available to Apple for unrelated purposes.
Independent researchers can inspect software images used by the system, creating an unusual level of outside visibility into the cloud environment. Apple has also expanded the architecture while maintaining control over the software and privacy protections used for processing.
This creates a layered system rather than a simple choice between local and cloud AI.
Apple Intelligence first determines whether the device can handle the request. More complex work can move to Private Cloud Compute. External models may be offered separately when the user chooses to involve them.
The user does not need to understand the technical path behind every answer. The system chooses the smallest and most private environment capable of completing the task.
Apple Silicon Was an AI Investment
Apple’s control of its processors has become one of its largest advantages in the AI era.
The Neural Engine first appeared years before generative AI became a consumer obsession. It supported Face ID, photography, speech recognition and other machine-learning tasks. Apple continued expanding that hardware across the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Those investments now provide a large installed base of devices designed to run machine-learning workloads locally. Recent Apple chips combine CPU, GPU, Neural Engine and unified memory in one architecture that can move information efficiently between different types of processing.
The same design helps foundation models run without requiring the power consumption or separate memory systems associated with conventional data-center hardware.
Apple also controls the operating systems that schedule those workloads. A model can be optimized for the exact processors, memory limits and energy behavior of supported devices.
Competitors can build excellent models, but they often need to support hardware from several manufacturers with inconsistent capabilities. Apple can decide that an AI feature requires a specific generation of silicon and design the complete experience around it.
Developers Gain a Local Model
The Foundation Models framework extends Apple Intelligence on-device beyond Apple’s own apps. Developers can use the system model through native Swift tools rather than shipping a separate large model or paying for every cloud request.
An app can generate structured content, interpret natural language or use tool calling while keeping supported processing on the device. Apple handles model delivery and system integration.
This can reduce operating costs for developers. A cloud-based AI feature creates an ongoing expense each time a user submits a request. Local inference uses hardware the customer already owns.
It can also improve reliability. Features may remain available without an internet connection and respond without waiting for a remote service.
The framework encourages a quieter form of AI adoption. Apps do not need to add a prominent chatbot tab or redesign themselves around a conversational interface. Intelligence can appear inside existing workflows as a useful capability.
That is where Apple’s strategy may reach scale. Millions of apps can incorporate small AI functions that users experience as normal software behavior rather than as visits to an AI destination.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.
The Installed Base Is Apple’s Distribution Advantage
The AI race is often discussed as a contest between models. Consumer adoption also depends on distribution.
Apple can deliver new intelligence features through operating-system updates across the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. Users do not need to create another account, choose a provider or transfer their personal information into a new service.
Siri already occupies the system interface. Apple Intelligence can work across first-party apps. Developers can connect their own features through Apple frameworks.
The scale is difficult to reproduce. A model provider may have stronger benchmark scores but still need users to download an app and consciously open it. Apple can introduce AI during actions people already perform: replying to a message, locating a photo, organizing a note or completing a shortcut.
This does not guarantee success. Apple must make Siri AI reliable, keep feature availability consistent and prove that local models can deliver enough capability to satisfy users accustomed to powerful cloud assistants.
The distribution advantage only becomes meaningful when the experience works.
Winning Without Building the Loudest Chatbot
Apple has made mistakes during its AI transition. Siri improvements arrived later than promised, regional regulations delayed features and competitors established powerful consumer brands before Apple completed its new system.
Those setbacks explain why the claim that Apple lost the AI race became persuasive.
They do not settle the outcome.
The first stage rewarded companies that released chatbots quickly and demonstrated increasingly large models. The next stage may reward systems that can integrate AI into ordinary life without demanding constant cloud access, high subscription costs or broad collection of personal information.
Apple Intelligence on-device is built for that stage. It uses hardware already in the user’s hand, protects more personal context locally and gives developers access to intelligence without requiring every interaction to become a server transaction.
Apple does not need to win every benchmark or release the most talkative assistant. It needs AI to become a reliable part of the devices people already trust.
Brownlee’s title works because both statements can be true. Apple lost the visible sprint that defined the early generative AI market. By concentrating on local processing, silicon, privacy and operating-system integration, it may already be positioning itself to win the race that follows.
Apple’s next iPad lineup refresh could begin this fall with a new iPad mini, followed by updates across the rest of the tablet family during 2027. The reported schedule would give Apple a rolling series of launches rather than one event covering every iPad at once.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is preparing replacements for the iPad mini, entry-level iPad, iPad Air and iPad Pro. The compact model is expected to arrive first, potentially as early as October, while the remaining tablets would follow over the next several months.
Apple has not announced any of the devices, and release timing can change. The report nevertheless gives prospective buyers a clearer picture of where each current model sits in its cycle. The first update could also bring one of the most requested display improvements to Apple’s smallest tablet.
iPad Lineup Refresh Starts With the Mini
The iPad lineup refresh is expected to begin with the iPad mini, which has received fewer updates than Apple’s larger tablets. The current design remains popular because it offers an 8.3-inch screen in a device small enough to hold comfortably with one hand, place in a small bag or use as a portable reading and note-taking tool.
The next model is reportedly moving to an OLED display. That would give the iPad mini deeper black levels, stronger contrast and more vivid color than its current LCD panel. OLED would be particularly noticeable when reading in dark environments, watching video or working with images.
The new display is expected to measure approximately 8.4 inches without producing a major change to the overall design. Apple may retain a 60Hz refresh rate rather than bringing the 120Hz ProMotion technology used by the iPad Pro. That could disappoint buyers hoping the mini would become a compact Pro model, but OLED alone would represent a visible upgrade.
Reports have also pointed to an A19 Pro chip. That would give the smaller tablet more performance for games, creative apps, Apple Intelligence and longer-term software support. The current iPad mini already occupies an unusual position between a reading device and a compact professional tool. A stronger chip and OLED screen would push it further toward the second category.
Price may become the less attractive part of the update. Apple could raise the starting cost as display and memory expenses increase. Buyers interested mainly in portability may accept a higher price, but the iPad mini would need to avoid moving too close to the iPad Air.
The Entry-Level iPad May Stay Familiar
Apple’s least expensive iPad is expected to receive a more modest update in early 2027. The company reportedly plans to preserve the current design while replacing the processor with a newer chip.
That would fit the role of the entry-level model. Apple uses it for education, families, basic productivity, streaming, games and first-time tablet buyers. A dramatic redesign could increase the cost without improving the tasks most customers use it for.
The processor update could bring Apple Intelligence compatibility, depending on the chip and memory configuration Apple chooses. The current model’s position outside some advanced AI features creates an increasingly visible separation from the rest of the lineup.
A newer chip would also extend the useful life of the device. Entry-level iPads are often kept for several years, passed between family members or deployed in schools and businesses. Long software support can be more valuable in that segment than a thinner body or new camera arrangement.
Anyone considering the current base iPad should decide whether price or longevity has greater value. The current model remains suitable for ordinary use, particularly when discounted. Buyers who want the longest possible support window may prefer to wait.
iPad Air Could Receive the Larger Display Upgrade
The iPad Air is also expected to receive an update in 2027, with OLED display technology reportedly planned for the range. That would narrow one of the most obvious visual differences between the Air and the iPad Pro.
Apple currently positions the Air as the balanced choice: stronger than the entry model, less expensive than the Pro and available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes. It supports Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard while offering M-series performance for demanding apps.
An OLED display would make that value proposition more aggressive. The Air could offer improved contrast and image quality without requiring buyers to move to the Pro tier. Apple would still have several ways to distinguish the Pro, including ProMotion, brighter displays, thinner hardware, advanced cameras and newer processors.
The processor is likely to receive another M-series upgrade as well, though the exact chip remains uncertain. For most users, the Air already has far more processing power than routine tablet work demands. The screen may provide the stronger reason to wait.
The risk for Apple is pricing. OLED panels could push the Air upward, especially in the 13-inch configuration. If the gap between Air and Pro becomes too narrow, buyers may move directly to the flagship. Apple will need to preserve a convincing middle tier.
iPad Pro May Focus on Power and Accessories
The next iPad Pro is reportedly planned for spring 2027. Apple may use a new M-series processor while leaving the current thin design largely intact.
That would make the Pro refresh more evolutionary than transformative. The current generation already includes OLED displays, high-end performance, Face ID, ProMotion and support for Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard.
Apple is also reportedly preparing two updated Apple Pencil models. Those accessories could arrive alongside the next iPad Pro, with changes potentially related to battery design and regulatory requirements.
The larger question is what additional processor power will do for the tablet. iPadOS 27 has expanded multitasking and window management, but buyers continue to evaluate the Pro against MacBook models at similar prices. A faster chip alone will not settle that comparison.
Apple may rely more heavily on AI, professional applications and accessory integration to justify the update. The Pro has become a platform for illustration, video editing, music production, 3D work and specialized enterprise apps. New hardware needs to strengthen those uses rather than simply win another benchmark.
Should Buyers Wait?
The answer depends on the model. Prospective iPad mini buyers have the strongest reason to pause because the reported fall update could introduce a substantially better display within months.
Entry-level buyers can still consider the current iPad when pricing is attractive. Its expected replacement appears focused on performance rather than design. Waiting becomes more sensible for anyone who wants Apple Intelligence support or maximum longevity.
The current iPad Air remains a capable option, particularly for users who need a tablet now. OLED would improve the experience, but a 2027 release leaves a longer wait. The same logic applies to the iPad Pro. Its successor may be faster, though the existing model already covers demanding work comfortably.
Apple’s gradual schedule could keep the iPad in the hardware conversation from fall through spring. It also means there will be no single perfect moment when every model is equally new.
The iPad mini may open the cycle because it has the most obvious opportunity for visible improvement. After that, Apple can use the base iPad for reach, the Air for broader OLED adoption and the Pro for its latest silicon and accessories.
The tablet lineup is not expected to change all at once. It may instead evolve model by model, giving buyers repeated reasons to reconsider which iPad fits their needs.
In the month that I’ve been using iOS 27 (launching in public beta today) and the new Siri AI, I’ve come to a few conclusions: Siri AI is a much better Siri and will (probably) be a massive success; the newfound chatbot capabilities of Siri will pose a serious threat to OpenAI and the vast majority of free ChatGPT users they have; and the new Siri is (again, probably) not for me at the moment. At the very least, it can’t be right now given its lack of support for third-party apps and technical issues I’ve encountered during beta testing.
It took me a while to accept the fact that Siri AI can’t be the kind of AI assistant I’d spend hours working with every day. But after testing iOS 27’s new Siri experience every day (and breaking it often in the process), I think that’s okay – and, arguably, what Apple is shooting for at the moment.
The new Siri AI is not designed for people who have grown accustomed to working with frontier models and agents such as Claude Code and Codex. The first version of Siri AI can’t be considered an “agent”, nor can it be compared to products from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google that are targeting power users living at the bleeding edge of AI. If you go into Siri AI thinking that it’s Apple’s answer to ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork for long-running tasks or deep research queries, you’re going to be disappointed – like I initially was.
Instead, Siri AI carries all the typical traits of a new Apple product: it’s a user-friendly experience designed for the masses, without any of the complexities that define a power-user tool, for better or worse. This is how Apple rolls: they don’t start from a high power-user ceiling and let products trickle down to consumers; they always start from the consumer level and refine, iterate, and extend until products trickle up to power users. This perspective isn’t meant to excuse the (many) current flaws of Siri AI. (More on them below.) It’s just the necessary lens for understanding how Apple is addressing their AI shortcomings in a way that doesn’t betray the company’s soul and design ethos.
There will be plenty more to say about iOS 27, the improved Shortcuts app, Liquid Glass tweaks, and other system enhancements later this year. After all, I have a review to write. Today’s column is merely an opportunity for me to reason through the obstacles I’ve faced with Siri AI and the way I’ve had to re-learn how to think about Siri.
Siri AI: The Good Stuff
You see, I believe my issue is that I’m too agent-pilled and accustomed to products like Claude Code and Codex at the moment. Desktop agents have fundamentally changed what I do as a creator who writes and talks on podcasts but also releases softwareproducts for my team and audience. There is no denying that Apple’s new Foundation models powering Siri are a far cry from Fable and Sol, or that they feel like models from two years ago. The AI frontier from the two big labs (and – we have to be honest with the numbers here – probably SpaceXAI and Meta now, too) is in a completely different league at the moment. I spent my first couple of weeks with Siri AI trying to convince myself that I could replace Codex with Siri AI, and that was the wrong approach. There is a potential future in which Siri AI can become a more proactive and capable agent, but that’s not what Apple is shipping this year.
If you, like me, are a heavy Claude or ChatGPT user but are curious about Siri AI, you need to reset your expectations and understand that Apple is going after something else entirely. For starters, the new Siri AI is a dramatically better Siri for typical Siri stuff. The new Siri understands your commands and nuanced requests better because of the LLMs behind it; it can often perform multiple requests in one go (such as setting multiple timers with one command); the new expressive (and customizable!) voices sound great, and they’re terrific at reading and summarizing notifications. Apple’s first advantage compared to other chatbots is right here: only Siri can integrate with the iPhone and iPad to this extent, so even if the Foundation models aren’t as smart as the competition, Siri can do a lot more for most people on their devices because neither OpenAI nor Anthropic have OSes they can control. Claude and ChatGPT are extremely intelligent inside their own apps; Siri AI is intelligent enough for routine tasks that can span an entire operating system.
The new expressive voices (right) sound great.
The other key advantage of Siri AI is its system-wide persistence. In addition to voice mode, there’s now a full-blown Siri app that behaves like a traditional chatbot app, allowing you to revisit threads and pin specific ones at the top; but most importantly, you can now finally invoke the new hybrid Spotlight/Siri AI search UI from anywhere on iOS by swiping down on the Dynamic Island.
Spotlight and Siri have been unified in the same UI, so you can still quickly launch apps and documents via search in addition to asking questions.
The lack of system-wide access to Spotlight on iOS bothered me for years, ever since I started reviewing iOS on an annual basis. Now, search is only a swipe away no matter the app I’m using, and the search box itself is smart enough to understand whether I’m looking for an app to launch or formulating a longer request for Siri AI.
It’s been challenging for me to “undo” advanced habits I’ve developed with agents like OpenClaw and assistants like Codex; I think MacStories readers who fall on the power-user end of the AI spectrum will probably face the same hurdles with Siri AI. However, I’ve been able to identify a variety of areas where Siri AI was faster, nicer, and more comfortable than ChatGPT or Codex Remote for practical, everyday questions.
I recently spent a few days in Gaeta, and as we were walking to dinner one night, we spotted this huge vessel docked in front of the restaurant. Typically, I would have taken a picture, started a new ChatGPT thread, uploaded the image, and asked a question about it. This time, I simply held down the Camera Control button (which now defaults to Siri AI mode in the Camera app) and captured a photo. A few seconds later, Siri AI told me I was looking at the Palinuro, a three-masted barquentine that serves as a training vessel for the Italian Navy – which was spot-on. An interaction that would have taken 20-30 seconds with ChatGPT was reduced to a five-second affair with Siri AI. Even nicer, I was able to ask follow-up questions from Siri AI’s floating overlay as well as find the chat in the Siri app later, where I continued asking questions about the ship’s history and usual locations.
The ability to go from Siri in the Camera to a longer conversation in the dedicated Siri app is one of my favorite aspects of Siri AI.
Improved on-screen awareness and integration with Apple Maps has been another highlight. On our way to Gaeta, Google Maps had us drive through narrow mountain roads that we really didn’t like, even though they arguably saved us some time. For the return trip, I decided to use Apple Maps, but I noticed that it also recommended the same mountain roads. So without leaving the Maps app, I swiped down to invoke Siri and typed:
I wanna go back home (from Gaeta to Rome) but I don’t like this route. It goes through too many mountains. I wanna do the Autostrada as much as possible. Is there any way to maybe add some time to the trip and go slightly further down south to find another Autostrada entrance?
To which Siri responded:
To avoid the mountainous routes and stay on the Autostrada A1 longer, you can head slightly south from Gaeta toward the Cassino entrance or even further south toward Capua before heading north to Rome. This will add some time to your trip but provides a flatter, more straightforward drive on the highway.
Again, spot-on: the Cassino toll booth proved to be the way to go for a more comfortable trip.
These Maps-related suggestions were perfect.
A couple more things worth noting here:
Siri AI didn’t mind my mix of Italian and English in the same request. Even though it’s only officially launching with English support, Siri AI is backed by a large language model – and LLMs are inherently good at multiple languages.
Siri AI assembled a multi-step route for me, which I opened in Maps, and it was perfect.
After some hiccups in the first two developer betas of iOS 27, Siri AI has also become an efficient way to work with the Reminders app, which I started using as my primary task manager several months ago when I began working on my RemCTL CLI for it. In addition to the usual stuff that Siri could already do in Reminders before, such as creating tasks and fetching items due on the current day, Siri AI – thanks to the new and improved App Intents Apple added to Reminders – can now handle more advanced questions. For instance, I can ask Siri to get tasks belonging to two specific sections of a list in Reminders, and it’ll do it. Claude can also integrate with Reminders on iOS, but since its integration is powered by the old and limited EventKit framework, it can’t be as flexible as the exclusive App Intents integration now available for all apps in Siri AI.
Siri AI can finally show me tasks from sections of lists…too bad it also included a task from another section.
I’ll have plenty more examples to share and analyze in my review of iOS and iPadOS 27 later this year. As things stand right now, my thoughts on Siri AI are converging around this idea: with system-wide access, an exclusive app ecosystem, and good enough performance, Siri AI doesn’t need to be a frontier-level model to be useful to millions of people.
Siri AI: The Bad Stuff
All of this, however, is not to say that Siri AI is perfect. Far from it.
This is beta software, of course, and Apple has time to improve the experience. But I’m afraid that some design choices and intrinsic limitations of Siri AI will remain in place for the next year, leaving us with a product that, despite a two-year delay, still feels very early compared to the likes of ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, even in their plain “chatbot” modes.
The biggest issue I’ve encountered is the inconsistency of it all. Very often, the new Siri AI still replies with a generic “Uh oh, something went wrong” error that doesn’t explain what the error was or why it happened. Sometimes, I ask a question via voice, and it errors out, but then a few seconds later, I type the same question in the app, and it’s fine.
Anecdotally speaking, these issues seem to occur more frequently when Siri “thinks” longer for a request, which perhaps suggests Apple needs to optimize the performance of their larger model on Private Cloud Compute. However, the fact that Apple wants to keep things simple compared to their competition isn’t doing them any favors here: in ChatGPT or Gemini, I can know when the model is reasoning for longer, but Siri AI’s interface is a black box. There are no reasoning selectors or hints in the UI at all. That is a fine, Apple-y approach when everything works well; but as soon as something breaks (as often happens with chatbots), the lack of clarity and controls stings.
The entire Siri app is, in fact, a bit of a mess. Its performance is subpar: I’ve noticed frequent stutters when scrolling threads, delays when typing (letters wouldn’t appear on-screen and autocorrect wouldn’t work), and broken ‘Sources’ popups displaying no actual sources for a query.
The results of this query were stale (I was on a trip last week), and the Sources panel for linked emails came up empty.
The app lets you rename and pin threads, which is nice, but it doesn’t offer basic controls such as the ability to select text in a Siri response or create folders for chats. Although the grid view looks good in marketing screenshots, in practice, I had to disable it immediately because I couldn’t quickly parse my threads and find what I was looking for.
I really don’t like Siri’s grid layout.
Which brings me to indexing. As I noted above, Apple’s advantage compared to other chatbots will be Siri’s access to an on-device index that draws from the user’s apps and personal context. The problem is that I’ve yet to see an example of personal context “enhancing” any of Siri’s answers, and performing actions in or retrieving data from apps has been half broken for me since the very first beta of iOS 27.
I can’t speak about personal context because it has literally never worked in my examples. For apps, my understanding is that third-party ones will need to be specifically updated for iOS 27 in order to work with Siri AI – although some of them seem to work already, but others don’t? Apple requires developers to implement new features of the App Intents framework for Siri AI, and I’m optimistic that those who do will have their apps appear in Siri AI by September. Greg Pierce, the developer of Drafts, has added early support for Siri AI in his app, and I’ve been able to successfully create a note within the app from Siri, which presented a custom UI snippet for Drafts and completed the request in seconds. That was neat.
My problem is that, right now with Apple’s own apps, both the index and Siri’s ability to perform actions are very inconsistent. The assistant hallucinates abilities it doesn’t have, and it frequently just doesn’t work. In the examples below, I wanted to get notes from a specific folder, songs from a playlist, and a link from a note. Siri AI responded with an empty list of notes, said it couldn’t get songs from a playlist, and told me that my note didn’t have any links, respectively. (It did.)
Reminders integration started working for me in iOS 27 beta 3, but it still isn’t perfect. When I ask for tasks due today, Siri AI insists on presenting the same tasks twice, my only fault being that I enabled the integration between Reminders and Calendar:
At one point, I asked Siri to show me my overdue reminders. Siri AI struggled with that: it cut the list of overdue items short, apologized when I pushed back, then did it again anyways. I know that Siri AI is not based on a Gemini model but is rather a Gemini distillation, but I think that if you’ve ever used a Gemini model before, this kind of behavior with tool-calling should be awfully familiar.
Siri AI isn’t a replacement for agentic workflows with other LLMs that can perform multiple actions in one chain of events. Here, for instance, I asked Siri to get my latest screenshot from the Photos app and frame it with my Apple Frames shortcut. Not only did Siri AI not get the most recent screenshot from my library, but the assistant couldn’t perform two actions sequentially. At least, however, it told me; when I repeated a similar question but asked to copy the screenshot to the clipboard instead, Siri first asked me to confirm my action and then changed its mind and said it couldn’t do it.
Why ask for clipboard confirmation if you can’t do it?
Searching for content hasn’t been ideal on my end, either. When I asked Siri to find me the latest single by Phoebe Bridgers, its default text response was an EP from two years ago; when I asked via voice, the response was correct. (…Why?) I similarly haven’t been impressed with Siri’s ability to search for messages and emails. Siri AI can reliably find recent texts from the Messages app, but the moment I start going a little further back in time, the system seems to struggle. I wanted to know when we took some time off at MacStories last summer, which I know was mentioned in a MacStories Weekly email that I have in the Mail app. Siri AI could only find a generic mention of John recharging after some time off, but it couldn’t give me an exact date because it did not find the correct email. ChatGPT Work did it in one minute and gave me a full breakdown of the weeks we took off.
Left: ChatGPT Work. Right: Siri AI.
All of this begs the question:
Is Apple’s on-device index a solid technological foundation or not? Is this system actually going to work at scale, for users with dozens of apps installed, each donating their data to the index, perhaps spanning multiple years of content? And can the cloud models – which are not using MCP but appear to be based on a plain JSON schema for structured data – make sense of it all?
My early tests haven’t been encouraging, but we have until September to find out.
The Trickle-Up
A trickle-up strategy cuts both ways: it gives Apple an opportunity to start simple and refine over time, but it also means that you, the user, are never given any more control than what the product allows for. As a result, Siri AI can be magical when it works; when it doesn’t, it feels like a mystery.
I can’t say whether I’m optimistic that Apple will get all of this to work in time for the fall or not because they don’t have the greatest track record in AI. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since the product itself is genuinely interesting and different from any other chatbot on the market. I want Siri AI to work, and if Apple can deliver on their vision, I’m convinced that it’ll spell trouble for OpenAI and ChatGPT. (Let’s face it: it’s the product to beat here, both in and outside of court.)
Siri AI permeates iOS 27, and that’s a threat to OpenAI and the hundreds of millions of users they have using ChatGPT for free with GPT-5.5 Instant. I don’t think Apple Foundation Models are as good as GPT-5.5 Instant, but Siri AI is the more ergonomic and integrated product. When the underlying chatbot and its world knowledge capabilities are good enough, and they can also be invoked via voice, text, the Camera app, context menus, or keyboard shortcuts, why would I open a siloed chatbot when I can use Siri AI and get a comparable answer more comfortably? If you’re a casual user of ChatGPT and do not pay for it, I think Siri AI can be a very compelling product that provides similar answers and, unlike OpenAI’s chatbot, integrates with the iPhone apps you already use. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that OpenAI is now following in Anthropic’s footsteps to monetize the business and enterprise markets rather than the consumer one.
At the same time, my concern is that we may be collectively assuming that “normal people” won’t see the differences between the capabilities of ChatGPT and Siri AI. In this industry, we have a tendency to sell “normal people” short and paint them as some perplexed bunch of occasional smartphone users who somehow passively accept any technology that is thrown at them. I strongly disagree with that. Maybe those people don’t care about ChatGPT Work, Codex, or Fable (yet?), but they can tell when an AI assistant is useful and when it’s not. People will compare the utility of ChatGPT to Siri AI, and I’m concerned that Apple’s 1.0 product will feel like it’s too little, too late – especially since Siri AI will be launching in select regions and in English only.
In the AI scene, companies move fast and break things. Apple needs to move fast without breaking anything, anymore. That’s a tough challenge, but here we are.
Update: An earlier version of this article referred to this feature as having been introduced in iPadOS 27, but it was actually introduced in the iPadOS 26 cycle. I missed it. My apologies.
In iPadOS’ Shortcuts app, the existing ‘Open App’ action was recently updated with the ability to launch an app with a specific window placement parameter. This means you can now automate window positions on iPad by opening a bunch of apps and programmatically selecting where their windows be placed.
To find this feature, use the ‘Open App’ action in Shortcuts and expand it to reveal the new ‘Window Location & Size’ field. Here, you can click the default ‘Full Screen’ value to reveal a host of options:
Full Screen
Left
Right
Top Bottom
Top Leading
Top Trailing
Bottom Leading
Bottom Trailing
Left Third
Middle Third
Right Third
You can play around with these options to open any app and resize any window by choosing from the same presets that are otherwise shown by iPadOS when right-clicking the traffic light controls:
Some of the options supported by the ‘Open App’ action.
That was a neat discovery, but as I was playing around with the action, I realized that its practical utility would be impacted by the fact that you have to manually pre-select the app you want to open as well as its window layout. Wouldn’t it be better if you could turn this Shortcuts action into a reusable technique to programmatically get whichever app is in the foreground with no manual selection upfront, then also give it a pre-selected window preset? As it turns out, you absolutely can.
This is why I created MultiSwitcher, a simple proof-of-concept shortcut for iPadOS users that lets you resize any foreground window to a preset of your choice – no manual input necessary. The idea is fairly straightforward: you can use the ‘Get Current App’ action to get the name of the foreground app, pass it to the ‘Open App’ action, and also pre-configure that action to accept a layout variable.
This new parameter of the ‘Open App’ action supports configurable options.
MultiSwitcher is best used as a shortcut added to your iPad’s dock, so you can click it at any time and instantly resize the foreground window. For MultiSwitcher, I designed a visual menu (with some ASCII characters) that lets you preview window layouts, pick one, and resize the currently frontmost window. It doesn’t have to be this way, though: if you’d rather add multiple variations of MultiSwitcher to your dock, each with a specific window size already selected, you can also do that and skip the menu. The choice is up to you.
While these newfound window-control capabilities for iPadOS are still a far cry from the Mac’s breadth of window managers and multitasking tweaks, I find this implementation in Shortcuts to be quite elegant and intuitive for most users to grasp with no need for a third-party app.
You can download MultiSwitcher for iPadOS below.
MultiSwitcher
Control iPadOS window placement by selecting from a list of preset window sizes. The shortcut will resize the currently frontmost window.
If you're using older iPhone or iPad hardware and you're hoping to keep running Apple's latest operating systems, this year's releases bring mostly good news. The iOS 27 update will run on all iPhones that can run iOS 26, all the way back to the iPhone 11 and second-generation iPhone SE. The iPadOS 27 update is slightly less generous, dropping support for the 3rd-generation iPad Air, 8th-generation iPad, and 5th-generation iPad mini (all of these devices used an older A12 Bionic chip; supported devices now use an A13 or better).
Apple says owners of older devices should see performance improvements in iOS 27, thanks in part to an updated CPU scheduler. This scheduler was apparently already included with newer iPhones but has been ported back to older devices with this release.
Apple's iOS 27 compatibility list.
Credit:
Apple
Apple's iPadOS 27 compatibility list.
Credit:
Apple
But many of the new features Apple mentioned require support for Apple Intelligence, which remains confined to newer devices with at least 8GB of RAM. Apple Intelligence still requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, an iPhone 16 or newer, or an iPhone Air. On the iPad, support requires an iPad Air or iPad Pro with an M1 or newer.
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