Not just in iOS 18.4: New Siri may be coming sooner
Apple seems to be making faster progress than planned with the next incarnation of its voice assistant. But it will still take months.
Siri in iOS 18.1: New look, new intelligence?
(Image: Apple)
The biggest surprise that buyers of iPhone 16 & Co. are likely to experience is the fact that Apple is publicly advertising its AI system Apple Intelligence, but it will not be launched on the market until iOS 18.1 in October at the earliest – in the EU even later. And that's not all: the update only brings some of the functions, with more planned for the coming months. Now, at least the voice assistant Siri is set to move a little faster. This is according to a usually well-informed Apple journalist.
Partial functions already at the start with iOS 18.3?
As Mark Gurman from Bloomberg writes in his newsletter, at least some of the new Siri features are to be made available in iOS 18.3. Previously, these were not expected until iOS 18.4 in (later) spring. Siri already has a new look in iOS 18.1, including a pretty animation, and is supposed to capture conversational content for longer – so users can refer to previously asked questions, which usually works relatively well. You can also correct a sentence you have started.
However, the really smart features such as capturing the current screen view in order to interact with it, as well as access to the user's context, are initially missing. Apple is already heavily promoting the latter. Siri should know the user much better than before and be able to access previous conversations, images or other personal details. According to Gurman, iOS 18.4 will still receive "many of the new Siri features", but "some" are already being discussed for iOS 18.3. He did not say exactly what these are.
The current timeline takes its time
iOS 18.3 is currently expected in January, iOS 18.4 will probably take at least until February, if not March. Only then will the entire Apple Intelligence Suite, which Apple announced back in the summer, be available.
iOS 18.1 (as well as iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1) will initially include the new writing tools, photo cleanup and notification summaries. Image generators are not expected before iOS 18.2, as is ChatGPT integration for Siri (on request). All new Siri features will not be available until 2025, along with additional languages. US English will remain the only language until then.
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