Siri’s Stagnation: Why Apple’s Voice Assistant Lags And Why Catching Up Is So Hard
Back in 2011, asking a phone to “book me a table” felt like living in the future. Today, asking Siri to “set a 7 a.m. alarm” can still feel like flipping a coin - one that sometimes lands on “Here’s what I found on the web.” Meanwhile, Google and Amazon have iterated, rebranded, and rebuilt their assistants around modern large language models (LLMs). Apple, for all its polish, finds itself playing catch-up with a product that launched first and then… slowed to a dignified shuffle.
So what went wrong? Why did a trailblazer with a trillion‑dollar war chest wind up trailing? The short answer: technical debt, cultural choices, and a privacy posture that trades speed for safety.
1) The Core of the Problem: Missed Moments and Technical Debt
Siri didn’t “get dumb.” It just didn’t get flexible. Multiple reports over the years especially from The Information and follow‑on coverage have described early Siri as a rigid, brittle system where even “seemingly simple updates” (like adding phrases) could require rebuilding large chunks of a monolithic database. That’s the kind of architecture that turns every improvement into a slog, not a sprint. (Voicebot.ai)
You can see the long tail of those choices in outcomes data. Loup Ventures’ oft‑cited “Digital Assistant IQ” tests (smartphone edition, 2019) showed Google Assistant correctly answering ~93% of 800 questions, compared to Siri’s ~83% and Alexa’s ~80%. It’s an old benchmark now (and the entire category has changed), but it captured a dynamic Apple never decisively reversed: Siri routinely lagged in breadth and factual recall.
To be fair, Google and Amazon were building assistants as portals to the open web and third‑party services. Apple approached Siri more like it approaches the system keyboard: tightly integrated, carefully scoped, and designed for reliability over time. Reliability is admirable. But when the world shifts to generative models that can compose, reason, and act, a rule‑bound command parser looks and feels like a cassette deck in a world of Spotify.
A Hacker News commenter put it bluntly: “Siri is dumb, but it’s very predictably dumb … it does those few primitive things it does reliably well.” (Hacker News)
Predictable is great for alarm clocks. It’s less great for a 2025 voice interface.
2) Apple’s Privacy Paradox
Apple’s brand is privacy. Full stop. And the company has taken extraordinary steps to make “AI” feel compatible with that promise most notably on‑device models and Private Cloud Compute (PCC), a security architecture that extends device‑class protections into the cloud using Apple‑controlled hardware and an auditable software stack. The pitch: send as little as possible off the device, and when you must, send it to a cloud you can trust—even security researchers can inspect images of the PCC stack. (Apple)
That privacy posture is laudable. It also starves an assistant of the one nutrient modern LLMs gorge on: data at scale. Google’s Gemini and Amazon’s evolving Alexa Plus lean on immense data pipelines (with user controls), whereas Apple tries to squeeze insights from on‑device learning and tightly scoped, privacy‑preserving collection (e.g., differential privacy). That’s philosophically consistent and genuinely innovative—but it is also slower and harder. (WIRED)
Complicating matters, Apple has had to clarify Siri’s data handling in the wake of legal noise. In January 2025 the company emphasized that Siri does not store audio by default and that it never sells user data, after settling litigation it said it disagreed with. The message was: Siri is conservative with your information by design. The side effect is that it’s conservative with its own self‑improvement, too. (Reuters)
3) The Walled Garden (With Fewer Gates Than Rivals)
It’s fashionable to dunk on Apple’s “walled garden,” but the nuance matters. Apple provides SiriKit and App Intents so apps can register actions the assistant can perform. That’s neat, but it’s heavily domain-restricted compared to the free‑for‑all “skills” party Alexa hosted for years. (Alexa famously boasted tens of thousands of third‑party skills; whether many of them were useful is another story.) Google, meanwhile, actually shut down its “Conversational Actions” for Assistant in 2023 as an implicit admission that sprawling third‑party voice apps didn’t pan out. In short: Apple kept things tight; rivals tried “open” and then retrenched. The net effect for users is the same: fewer magical voice integrations than the hype suggested. (Apple Developer)
Where Apple differs is that its conservatism isn’t just a platform choice; it’s a company habit. Apple ships when it’s confident, not when “it might work.” That ethos has protected us from a million half‑baked features. It has also meant Siri rarely leaps; it steps carefully.
4) The “Apple Intelligence” Gambit and the Bumpy Launch
At WWDC 2024, Apple rolled out Apple Intelligence, a system‑wide layer of generative features and a promise that Siri would finally get context, memory, and the ability to take actions across apps. Apple also announced a pragmatic partnership: Siri can “tap” ChatGPT when it helps, with explicit consent and privacy guardrails. That was a notable signal of humility and a practical way to borrow competence while Apple’s own models mature. (Apple)
Reality arrived with frayed edges:
Feature timing slipped. Apple acknowledged that some of the “more personal Siri” capabilities would “take longer than we thought,” with rollouts pushed into “the coming year,” then further reporting indicated 2026 for the big Siri upgrade. MacRumors ran Apple’s own statement: “It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features…” Bloomberg and others reinforced the delay amid bug reports. (MacRumors)
Marketing walked back. The National Advertising Division pushed Apple to remove “available now” phrasing around Apple Intelligence; Apple complied and even pulled a Bella Ramsey ad that showcased capabilities not arriving on time. The episode became a neat parable: great demo, later delivery. (The Verge)
Quality hiccups. After Apple Intelligence notification summaries made a few messy headlines (literally), Apple paused those summaries in beta to address hallucinations. That’s not unique to Apple - everyone fights hallucinations but it punctured the aura of “this just works.” (AP News)
Geography got political. In Europe, Apple delayed or withheld features (e.g., iPhone Mirroring; AirPods Live Translation) while navigating the Digital Markets Act interoperability rules. Apple argues the DMA complicates secure development; the EU argues it protects competition. Either way, EU Siri users saw more “coming later” footnotes. (Reuters)
Also, the hardware bar rose. Apple Intelligence (and thus many of the new Siri experiences) requires A17 Pro or M‑series devices. If your iPhone predates the 15 Pro, you may be waiting a while for the “smart Siri” era. (Apple Support)
5) Leadership Whiplash and Internal Reboot
In 2025 Apple shuffled the org chart: Mike Rockwell, the respected Vision Pro engineering lead, took the reins on Siri; John Giannandrea still oversees ML/AI strategy but Siri moved under software chief Craig Federighi. Subsequent months brought further churn, including reports of Robby Walker (a senior AI exec) departing and the head of Apple’s foundation models decamping to Meta. Those moves don’t mean failure but they do signal urgency and a willingness to reset. (Reuters)
Bloomberg’s reporting throughout 2025 painted a picture of ambitious Siri upgrades colliding with engineering bugs and shifting ship dates. That’s not the story Apple wants, but it’s a familiar one in the LLM era: even giants are tripping over the last 10%. (Bloomberg)
6) What Real Users Say (Spoiler: It’s… Colorful)
From MacRumors’ sober coverage to social‑ish forums, the vibe is: we’re rooting for you, but—oof. A few representative voices:
“It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features…” —Apple spokesperson via MacRumors, March 2025. (MacRumors)
“The worst thing I’ve found about Siri … is its inability to distinguish voices properly… Friends who have a deep voice can control my Siri and vice versa.” —r/iphone user unpretentious. (Reddit)
“Siri is dumb, but it’s very predictably dumb …” —Hacker News user aristofun. (Hacker News)
To be fair, not everyone is unhappy; even that HN thread includes “90% of what I need Siri to do it does” replies. But the broader mood is clear: Siri is late to the LLM party and awkward at mingling. (Hacker News)
7) Meanwhile, the Competition Isn’t Sleeping
While Apple painstakingly aligns privacy, reliability, and ambition, rivals are shipping and iterating in public. Google is upgrading Assistant into Gemini across mobile and other surfaces, leaning hard into on‑screen understanding and conversational control. Amazon’s “Alexa Plus” promises an LLM‑driven reboot (subscription and device caveats apply). Whatever their own bumps, both ecosystems have momentum. (blog.google)
8) The Road Back: What Siri Needs to Truly Compete
a) Finish the architectural reboot
Apple has hinted (and reporting suggests) a deeper Siri rewrite is underway—a shift from database‑of‑phrases plumbing to an agent that can plan, sequence, and act. That’s not just swapping in a bigger model; it’s exposing capabilities (App Intents, Shortcuts, system controls) via a consistent schema that an LLM can reliably call, with guardrails. Apple’s App Intents groundwork points in the right direction; it needs ruthless consistency and broad coverage. (Apple Developer)
b) Make privacy a feature, not a constraint
Apple’s PCC story is genuinely strong. The next step is to translate it into developer trust (“Here’s how you can let Siri act on user data without seeing it”) and user benefits (“Here’s why Siri can understand your life and still keep it yours”). That means better tools, documentation, and third‑party pathways that feel more like capabilities than permissions pop‑ups. (Apple Security Research)
c) Ship fewer demos, more dependable loops
Users will forgive “this is in beta” if the core loops - dictation, timers, music control, messaging, navigation become bulletproof and then delightful. Apple pausing hallucination‑prone summaries was the right call; now it needs a cadence where each release removes a pain point. Think “Siri regained trust” before “Siri gained new tricks.” (AP News)
d) Treat developers like force multipliers
A truly useful assistant must reach into apps. Apple doesn’t need an Alexa‑style “skills store,” but it does need an unglamorous campaign to expand intent coverage, stabilize APIs, and make Shortcuts‑grade actions universal. Google learned the hard way that a sprawling third‑party voice app ecosystem can fail; Apple can learn from that and still empower developers with reliable, testable actions surfaced through Siri. (Google for Developers)
e) Embrace pragmatic partnerships
Letting Siri “tap” ChatGPT with user permission was pragmatic. If Apple needs more help (e.g., specific domains like coding, travel, or health), it should keep treating external models as rentable expertise behind PCC’s privacy glass. Users care about results; Apple can curate which model answers what, and still own the UX and the privacy. (Apple)
f) Regain the trust of Europe
Some DMA standoffs will be political. But transparent roadmaps for EU features and privacy‑centric interoperability options could turn a regulatory headwind into a quiet win. The more Apple explains how it will make features interoperable without compromising security, the fewer headlines about delays we’ll read. (Reuters)
9) So, Is Siri Doomed?
No. Siri’s problem isn’t that Apple can’t build a modern assistant. It’s that Apple chose (for a decade) to optimize for privacy, predictability, and integration over a data‑hungry, open‑ended AI sprint. That’s a respectable choice until the world shifts and the bar for “assistant” changes overnight.
“Apple Intelligence” is the right direction: a blend of on‑device models, auditable cloud compute, and app‑aware actions. The setbacks are real - missed ship dates, pulled ads, and bug‑hunting but they’re not terminal. They are the price of turning a conservative assistant into a confident agent, without torching the privacy ethos that made Apple Apple.
Until then, we’ll keep getting split‑screen reactions. Some longtime iPhone users say Siri does 90% of what they need - timers, texts, calls - “with fairly good accuracy.” Others, exasperated, bind their Action button to a different voice app. (“Siri, open ChatGPT” is the most 2025 sentence imaginable.) (Hacker News)
And when it fumbles, we’ll do what we always do: sigh, type the command manually, and make the same joke we’ve been making for years.
Siri‑ously, Apple. It’s time to get this right.