Apple’s long-planned context-aware Siri upgrade seems to have hit hurdles again as the company has reportedly delayed its release once again. While there’s no public announcement, the delay seems to have been confirmed internally at Apple as per a new report.
The report comes from Bloomberg, according to which the company planned to include the context-aware Siri upgrade in iOS 26.4 – an operating system update slated for March. However, Apple is now working to spread them out over future versions, which could mean that some features will be postponed until at least iOS 26.5, due in May, and iOS 27, which comes out in September this year.
The report adds that testing has “uncovered fresh problems with the software, prompting the latest postponements.” These issues include Siri not processing queries as it should or taking too long to handle requests. Due to these, Apple has instructed engineers to use the upcoming iOS 26.5 in order to test new Siri features, implying that the functionality may have been moved back by at least one release.
The main feature of the context-aware Siri upgrade is, of course, is contextual awareness where it can also tap into a user’s App so it can handle queries and tasks related to that specific app. This feature seems to have been facing the most issues according to the report. “Apple employees testing iOS 26.5 say early support for these features exists, but they don’t function reliably in all cases.”
Also Read: Report: Revamped Siri with Chatbot Capabilities Coming with iOS 27
Testers have flagged several reliability concerns, including inconsistent responses and a bug where Siri interrupts users if they speak too quickly. There are also reports that the assistant struggles with more complex queries that require longer processing time, occasionally failing to deliver accurate results.
In some cases, the upgraded Siri reportedly defaults to its existing integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT instead of relying on Apple’s in-house technology. This fallback appears to occur even in scenarios where the assistant should technically be able to handle the request on its own.
Current test versions of iOS 26.5 also include two additional features that the company hasn’t yet announced: a new web search tool and custom image generation. Apple has tested these abilities as part of iOS 26.4 as well, suggesting that some of the new Siri features could still arrive on the earlier timeline.
The upgrade to Siri was first announced in 2024 with a planned release for early 2025 but in Spring of last year, these were delayed to 2026. While Apple hasn’t publicly given any release timelines yet, the leak suggests the context-aware Siri upgrade could take some more time to arrive.
Author: Abhishek Malhotra
Source: The Mobile Indian
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
