Apple’s Siri has long been a staple of the iPhone experience, but recent developments have left users wondering: why is the anticipated Apple Intelligence Siri overhaul taking so long? In a candid interview with Tech Radar‘s Lance Ulanoff, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, addressed these concerns, shedding light on the company’s approach and the challenges involved.
Apple originally announced its Apple Intelligence-powered Siri revamp at WWDC 2024, promising to debut a redesigned iOS assistant by the end of the year. Not only did Apple fail to meet that deadline, but it admitted earlier this year that the new Siri won’t be ready anytime soon.
Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote on Monday lacked any meaningful updates to Siri, leaving fans wanting. The tech giant did note that full Apple Intelligence integration for the assistant would arrive “in the coming year,” and has since confirmed a 2026 release date.
Per recent reports, Apple’s development of an AI-powered Siri has been plagued with bugs, setbacks, and internal challenges among the leadership. Federighi went into detail about what’s been going on with the development process in the interview.
According to Apple’s software honcho, the company was working on two different versions of an AI-powered Siri architecture, internally designated “V1” and “V2.” What Apple announced at WWDC 2024 was V1. As the company continued to work on the V1 architecture, the company realized that it just didn’t fit the image of what it had imagined for the feature. And so, Apple moved its efforts to building V2 — an even taller task.
“We set about for months, making it work better and better across more app intents, better and better for doing search,” Federighi told Tech Radar.
“But fundamentally, we found that the limitations of the V1 architecture weren’t getting us to the quality level that we knew our customers needed and expected. We realized that V1 architecture, you know, we could push and push and push and put in more time, but if we tried to push that out in the state it was going to be in, it would not meet our customer expectations or Apple standards, and that we had to move to the V2 architecture.”
The V2 Apple Intelligence Siri architecture is an extension of V1 that goes well beyond it. Federighi described it as “a deeper end-to-end architecture that we knew was ultimately what we wanted to create, to get to a full set of capabilities that we wanted for Siri.”
The Apple exec emphasized that the company’s strategy is not to rush but to ensure each feature is meticulously crafted and ready for users. This philosophy underscores Apple’s commitment to quality over speed, aiming to deliver a seamless and reliable user experience that meets its stringent standards.
Furthermore, Federighi noted that a redesigned Siri was never supposed to be the centrepiece of Apple Intelligence. “When we started with Apple Intelligence, we were very clear: this wasn’t about just building a chatbot,” he said.
“So, seemingly, when some of these Siri capabilities I mentioned didn’t show up, people were like, ‘What happened, Apple? I thought you were going to give us your chatbot. That was never the goal, and it remains not our primary goal.”
Instead, Apple’s ultimate goal is a more holistic integration of Apple Intelligence across its software stack to give users access to AI features not just through dedicated tools, but wherever they need them. A deeply integrated and personal AI assistant is simply one part of that plan.
Federighi also highlighted the importance of privacy in Apple’s AI endeavours. He clarified that, unlike other platforms that may store user data on external servers, Apple ensures that AI processing occurs on-device or through encrypted communication with trusted servers, maintaining user confidentiality.
While the delay in Siri’s much-needed enhancements may be disappointing, Federighi’s insights point to a company prioritizing quality, integration, and user privacy. All that’s left is to see if Apple can deliver on its new 2026 promise for a more intelligent Siri.
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
The obvious question is why haven’t they started with a V2 Siri architecture from the beginning, instead of trying to graft new structure to the old foundation. It appeared to be less costly option initially? But Apple have enough software design experience to know that most of the time, when building the complex structure, it is faster, more efficient and less complicated – therefore less costly – to do it from scratch.
I truly believe that Apple misjudged it's core customers very real desire for the novelty of a "conversational Siri". I think it is as simple as that. When it comes to AI, Apple's leadership seems quite content to weave it into existing onboard apps developed by itself. It does strike me as odd that they obviously did this to themselves! I can imagine the quiet "I told you so's" in the majority of Apple engineers heads…
He explained it in the interview. It would take longer to do V2 only. So the plan was to do V1 first, and then switch to V2 when it was ready. Instead they found V1 didn’t work reliably enough, and have to wait for V2 now.
So they were trying to avoid the “delay” that everyone was freaking out about by doing V1 first as a stopgap until V2 was ready.
How long does it take Siri to understand that when I say turn on the light or turn on the lights I am referring to the same thing???