Apple has released an early version of its upcoming iOS 27 update – finally letting users try the new, fixed Siri.
The company revealed updates for all of its devices – including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch – last month. It comes with a range of new features, but most of them are focused on a new “Siri AI”, which promises to improve the virtual assistant.
The entirely new version of Siri is able to use data from across its owners’ devices, allowing them to ask complex questions about messages or emails as well as get access to a whole range of information. Users can ask for the name of a restaurant that a friend messaged them about, for instance, and the assistant will be able to pull it up.
The new AI features also include world knowledge for answering questions about facts, onscreen awareness that lets Siri see what is happening on the screen, a new Siri mode in the camera app on iPhone for asking about what is around a user, and the option to ask Siri to write things on their behalf.
Apple has repeatedly indicated that it is fixing Siri, by adding new and more powerful artificial intelligence features, but previous attempts have failed and led to apologies and departures from the company. This year, however, early reviews suggest that the feature is ready and that the dramatic changes promised by Apple have finally arrived.
Away from the new Siri features, Apple is also introducing a new “Spatial Reframing” feature that uses AI to let users move a photo around after it was taken, and an extend tool that can make images bigger by generatively filling in what it thinks the world around a photo might have looked like.
The new updates are available through Apple’s public beta programme. They can be downloaded by heading to Apple’s beta programme page and signing up.
Users are warned by Apple that the software is still in an early testing stage and that it can come with unexpected behaviour, such as crashes or even data loss. But the iOS 27 public beta appears relatively stable, with less impact on battery life and performance than previous years.
The public beta comes after a number of versions of the new operating system that were made available to developers.
