Apple’s top executive overseeing its Siri virtual assistant told staff that delays to key features have been ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to promote the technology publicly before it was ready made matters worse.
Robby Walker, who serves as a senior director at Apple, delivered the stark comments during an all-hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said that it’s unclear when the enhancements will actually launch, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private.
The frank discussion shows the extent of Apple’s crisis in the field of artificial intelligence, where it’s struggling to catch up with peers. Siri — less advanced than rival systems — has become a symbol of Apple’s AI challenges. And the company’s woes boiled over last week, when it acknowledged publicly that critical features would be delayed indefinitely.
During the all-hands gathering, Walker suggested that employees on his team may be feeling angry, disappointed, burned out and embarrassed after the features were postponed. The company had been racing to get the technology ready for this northern hemisphere spring, but now the features aren’t expected until next year at the earliest, people familiar with the matter have said.
Still, he praised the team for developing “incredibly impressive” features and vowed to deliver an industry-leading virtual assistant to consumers.
Apple shares had fallen 16% this year through to Thursday’s close, part of a broader stock rout that has walloped tech companies. The stock rebounded Friday, but pared gains during the afternoon. Apple was up less than 1% at $211.08 as of 2.18pm in New York.
iOS 19 update
On 14 February, Bloomberg News reported that Apple was struggling with bugs and engineering problems on its planned artificial intelligence tools for Siri. At the time, the company postponed the release from April to May, aiming to include the features in its iOS 18.5 operating system. Now it’s looking to add them as an update as early as the iOS 19 software cycle next year.
A spokesman for Apple declined to comment on the meeting, which was put on the schedule last week.
The features — unveiled last June at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference — are fundamental to making Siri a more effective personal assistant. The technology will allow the software to tap into users’ personal data to better respond to queries. It also will let Siri more precisely control apps and analyse content that’s on a user’s screen.
Read: Meet the iPhone 16e: Apple’s new ‘budget’ smartphone
But when Apple demonstrated the features at WWDC using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype. Walker told staff in the meeting that the delays were especially “ugly” because Apple had already showed off the features publicly. “This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it’s done,” he said. “We showed people before.
“To make matters worse,” Walker said, Apple’s marketing communications department wanted to promote the enhancements. Despite not being ready, the capabilities were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV advertisements starting last year.
Apple touted the features as a key selling point of the iPhone 16 line, which otherwise lacked major changes. And it’s part of a broader AI push called Apple Intelligence.
Walker also raised doubts about even meeting the current release expectations. Though Apple is aiming for iOS 19, it “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then”, Walker said. The company has several more priorities in development, and trade-offs will need to be made, he said.
“We have other commitments across Apple to other projects,” Walker said, citing new software and hardware initiatives. “We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred.” He said decisions on timing will be made on a “case-by-case basis” as work progresses on products planned for next year.
“Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri,” he said. “We’re going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready.”
Walker said that there is “intense personal accountability” about this effort shared by his boss John Giannandrea, the head of AI at Apple, as well as software chief Craig Federighi and other executives. — (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP
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