Latest news with #JacquelineRoy
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Apple is scrambling to catch up in a race it had a headstart in
Apple was among the first to release a digital assistant when it introduced Siri in 2011. It has struggled to capitalize on the headstart it had. Fresh delays in upgrading Siri have set Apple back at a time when AI assistants are the rage. It was 2011. The newest iPhone on the block was the 4s. And Apple was raring to introduce the world to a major acquisition it had been readying for over a year: Siri. Bought for an undisclosed sum, the "intelligent assistant" meant Apple was among the first to show smartphone users why they would want or need an AI-powered voice companion in their pocket. Fast-forward to 2025, and Apple's promises for Siri look uncertain. The voice assistant that should have given it a headstart in the ChatGPT era is struggling to catch up to a pack of rivals leading with far more powerful AI assistants. In other words, Apple is falling behind in a race it originally led. Last week, Apple confirmed that it was delaying generative AI features for Siri that were first shown off at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024. It's a rare instance in which Apple no longer has a clear release date in sight for a product it has already announced. Jacqueline Roy, an Apple spokesperson, told the unofficial Apple blog Daring Fireball that "it's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver" on upgraded features that transform Siri into a "more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal" experience. This has all caused some degree of embarrassment for Apple. Its marketing campaigns for a slate of new devices released over the past several months — including iPhones, iPads, and Macs — consistently mentioned their synchronicity with Apple Intelligence, which Siri is a fundamental part of. It helps explain why the company has now made a September ad, which stars the actor Bella Ramsey using a Siri feature that does not yet exist, private on its YouTube channel. "The delay makes a lot of sense," Hamish Low, an analyst at Enders Analysis, told Business Insider. "Apple clearly got ahead of itself with Apple Intelligence with disappointing features, awkward marketing campaigns, and tepid consumer demand. Apple's position here is ultimately defensive, it has much more to lose than to gain from the AI race." Though Apple said it anticipates rolling out the features "in the coming year," its Apple Intelligence upgrade delays — a tool it once pinned its future on — signals how much of an issue Siri has become at a time when rival services are flourishing. As companies have spent more time thinking about how to make generative AI useful to consumers, a series of Siri alternatives that embed powerful features have emerged — all while Apple struggles to deliver on all the promises it made for a generative AI-led Siri. OpenAI and Google have leaned heavily on building AI-powered voice assistants that industry followers say offer a more natural and engaging conversational experience than the one users currently get with Apple. Amazon, another early mover in the virtual assistant space, introduced a revamped version of Alexa last month that's free for Prime subscribers. Prominent Apple followers, such as Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, have described it as "ChatGPT Voice Mode on steroids." As he put it on X last month, "It is frightening how far behind Apple is in this space." "Alexa+ is notable for at least claiming to bring much of the advanced functionality that you would want from a real AI assistant," Low said. "We will need to see how far it lives up to this with its public launch later this month, but its ability to plug into a host of APIs, and directly access and interact with websites in the background otherwise, is key." The stakes are high if Apple fails to get Siri right. The generative AI age has introduced consumers to a growing assortment of AI-enabled smartphones that threaten to steal market share by offering AI features that offer more value. Threat to market share has become a key issue for the company in places like China, where it is facing fierce competition from local competitors introducing smartphones with AI capabilities that aim to win over local audiences. Apple's dilemma is clear. It is behind in a race that it entered nearly 15 years ago — with a headstart over many rivals — when it introduced Siri as an integrated feature of the iPhone 4s. Its turnaround plan for Siri has plenty riding on it. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Yahoo
Apple just made an extremely rare move
Apple said it's delaying its AI-powered Siri overhaul, which is now expected in the coming year. The Siri upgrade was announced in 2024 and promised a more personalized and capable virtual assistant. It's rare for Apple to delay a product once it's already been announced. You can probably count on one hand the number of times Apple has publicly announced a product delay. But Apple did just that on Friday, announcing that its plan for an AI overhaul to its virtual assistant, Siri, is taking longer than expected. "It's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year," Jacqueline Roy, a company spokesperson, told the unaffiliated Apple blog Daring Fireball about the "more personalized" Siri. It's not the first time Apple has delayed a product after announcing it, but it's a rare occurrence. In 2016, AirPods were expected to go on sale in October, but Apple delayed the release until December. Before that, in 2011, the white iPhone 4 was released 10 months after the black model, as Daring Fireball author John Gruber wrote in his blog post about the delay. And on one extremely rare occasion, Apple outright canceled a product after showing it off. After its AirPower wireless charging mat was announced in 2017 with an expected 2018 launch, Apple confirmed that it was no longer in the works, apologizing to customers and saying that it had determined that the product would "not achieve our high standards." When Apple Intelligence was first announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2024, the tech giant highlighted an AI-powered Siri that could answer users' more complex questions using personal context. As AI features came to iOS 18 beginning in October, Apple said to expect new languages this spring, but it didn't specify exactly when the new Siri would be ready. There have been some smaller tweaks to Siri since 2024, including ChatGPT integration, the ability to type out questions to Siri, and a more conversational assistant. In September — ahead of the iPhone 16 release — Apple published an ad featuring the actor Bella Ramsey to demonstrate the "more personal" Siri's ability to pull information from the Calendar app to help Ramsey remember someone's name. Now, it looks as if the highly anticipated upgrade won't arrive on iPhones until 2026 or the next generation of its iOS operating system. Read the original article on Business Insider
