Apple to Release New Siri with iOS 26.4 Next Year
Apple plans to finally release the Siri upgrade in spring 2026 with iOS 26.4, marking two years since it was first announced.
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Apple has internally set spring 2026 as the new launch window for its revamped Siri voice assistant, people familiar with the plan told Bloomberg. The update, which has seen repeated delays, is now expected to roll out alongside iOS 26.4, a software milestone historically released in March or April.
Although Apple has not announced a definitive date, the internal timeline points to a March–April 2026 debut. The advanced version of Siri had first been showcased during the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, with an initial goal of releasing it alongside that year’s iPhone model.
However, subsequent postponements pushed its expected launch to iOS 18.4 and later to iOS 18.5 in mid-2025. By March 2025, Apple shelved the rollout indefinitely due to persistent engineering roadblocks that impaired core functionalities, Bloomberg noted.
The delay sparked internal disagreements, with Apple’s AI and marketing divisions reportedly assigning blame to each other. Engineers have cited promotional overreach, while marketing teams insisted they followed AI team timelines.
Apple now aims to integrate the new Siri into iOS 26.4, which traditionally drops during the first quarter of the year. If executed, the launch would occur nearly two years after the assistant’s reintroduction at WWDC.
The refreshed Siri is expected to be powered by a proprietary Large Language Model (LLM), a significant leap from its earlier iteration. According to PhoneArena, the upgraded assistant may resolve longstanding usability issues like setting alarms or activating flashlight functions.
Whether Siri will shift to a chatbot model similar to ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini remains unclear, Tom’s Guide noted. Apple has yet to confirm if it will follow that conversational framework.
