Apple categorically denies Siri vaporware claims, and offers a better explanation There’s no denying that Apple made a major mis-step when it showed off impressive new Siri features during last year’s WWDC, before doubling-down in an iPhone 16 ad. The company was forced to delete the ad and walk back the timing. That led even the most upbeat of Apple commenters to criticize the company for showing off “vaporware,” implying that the demos had been fak ed. But two Apple execs have now categorically denied this, and said everything it showed at the time was the real thing … Last year’s demos of new Siri Apple demonstrated impressive new Siri capabilities at last year’s WWDC, saying they were coming within the year. This was followed by further demos in an ad for the iPhone 16 line-up. The ad featured Bella Ramsey spotting someone whose name she couldn’t remember. She quickly ducked out of sight to ask Siri the name of the person she met at a particular restaurant the previous month. Siri immediately tells her the name, presumably pulling this data from her calendar or an email on her phone. It was an extremely impressive demo of the power of the next-gen Siri working with personal context. However, Apple was forced to admit that the new capability wouldn’t in fact launch later that year, as it had promised. The vaporware claim

Following this, it was widely assumed that the keynote demo and ad had been completely fak ed, showing off features Apple planned to create but which didn’t actually exist at the time. Even Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who enjoyed a close relationship with Apple, noted that none of this had been demo’d in person to journalists, leading him to accuse the company of showing “vaporware.” That level is called vaporware. They were features Apple said existed, which they claimed would be shipping in the next year, and which they portrayed, to great effect, in the signature “Siri, when is my mom’s flight landing?” segment of the WWDC keynote [but] Apple was either unwilling or unable to demonstrate those features in action back in June, even with Apple product marketing reps performing the demos from a prepared script using prepared devices. What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis. Apple execs say no, the demos were real

However, Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak have told the WSJ’s Joanna Stern that this is absolutely untrue, and that the demos were real. Federighi: So we had some real software we were able to demonstrate there and show what was coming. Stern: But there was a working version of this? This wasn’t just vaporware? Federighi: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, of course, no. We were filming real working software with a real large language model, with real semantic search. That’s what you saw. Joswiak: There’s this narrative out there that, yeah, it was demoware only. No! A better explanation of the delay Apple has previously been extremely vague about explaining the delayed launch, stating quickly in this year’s WWDC keynote that it hadn’t yet met the company’s quality standards, and repeating this line in an interview with iJustine. But in the WSJ interview, the execs provide a little more color, implying that new Siri works on these sorts of queries when asked direct questions, but struggles more with indirect ones and follow-ups. Federighi: We had something working, but then, as you got off the beaten path – and we know with Siri, it’s open-ended what you might ask it to do and the data that might be used in personal knowledge. And we wanted it to be really, really reliable. And we weren’t able to achieve the reliability in the time we thought. Joswiak added that it worked as shown, but the error-rate was too high. 9to5Mac’s Take Clearly there is room for interpretation here. Where exactly is the dividing line between a feature which works but not as well as desired, and one whose hit-rate is so low that it essentially doesn’t work? How many takes were required to get a successful response for the videos? Only Apple knows where on that scale new Siri currently sits. But it’s clear that the company has learned its lesson about promising future features. It was notable that this year’s WWDC keynote said virtually nothing about anything that isn’t present, right now, in the very first betas. What was announced yesterday exists, and developers can try it all. That lesson will almost certainly mean Apple says nothing more about when we can expect new Siri until it is actually ready to release it in developer betas. You can watch the 7-minute interview below. Amazon Echo devices with Alexa Anker 511 Nano Pro ultra-compact iPhone charger Spigen MagFit case for iPhone 16e – adds MagSafe support Apple MagSafe Charger with 25w power for iPhone 16 models Apple 30W charger for above Anker 240W braided USB-C to USB-C cable Photo: Apple