Apple started rolling out iOS 27 on Sept. 14, putting its long-delayed Siri AI overhaul in users' hands as an English-only beta behind a waitlist.
Key Points:
- iOS 27 and matching updates for iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro shipped Sept. 14, with the rebuilt assistant as the main draw.
- Siri AI stays in beta, works only in English for now, and switches on only after users join a queue in Settings.
- Apple is holding the assistant back in mainland China and from iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch owners in the European Union.
Siri AI Beta Reaches iPhone Users
The company published its release notes on Monday, covering iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, tvOS 27 and visionOS 27, with the rebuilt assistant as the common thread.
The free iPhone update supports the iPhone 11 and the second-generation iPhone SE and later.
Siri AI holds back-and-forth conversations, digs details out of emails, notes and photos, and acts inside apps such as Messages and Reminders, drawing on what sits on the screen. A dedicated Siri app stores those exchanges and carries them between devices. Visual search now starts from the Camera app, and watchOS 27 adds Workout Buddy features and a tap gesture.
Installing the update does not hand anyone the assistant, since users must set their device language to English and then join a waitlist from the Siri menu in Settings. The company has also capped daily use of the features that run on its servers, and it says wider access will carry a fee later, without saying how much.
Support for French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish is due in October. The assistant is not launching in mainland China at all, and in the European Union it reaches only Mac and Vision Pro owners, skipping iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Users under 13 are locked out everywhere.
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Analysts Split On Apple's Gemini Bet
Chief Executive John Ternus pitched the software at last week's iPhone event, describing it as "personal intelligence that's actually personal." Wall Street has been slower to applaud.
KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel wrote after the June developer conference that Apple had shown no clear way to make money from AI and was leaning on Google's Gemini models, which the two companies agreed to in January. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives read the same strategy as a turning point, estimating that it could add $75 to $100 per share over time. Both cases now rest on a product that Apple is deliberately rationing.
Siri Delays Stretched Past Two Years
Apple showed a personalized Siri at its 2024 developer conference, pulled the features the following March, then missed its own spring target for iOS 26.4 and moved the work to this fall. Reports of that slip helped knock roughly $202 billion off the company's market value in a single February session, and the assistant has been treated as a proxy for Apple's AI credibility ever since.
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