Hello again! It’s a special breaking-news Thursday edition of the newsletter. Well, breaking if you’ve spent the last decade yelling at Siri.
The unbelievable has happened: Siri is finally good. Or at least it will be when iOS 27 arrives this fall. I’ve been testing Apple’s new AI-powered Siri beta for the last week. Our feature video just hit YouTube. If you’ve followed my work, you know I’ve been one of Siri’s most loyal critics. This is a big deal for AI, for Apple and YOU. Much more on it all below.
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You can see the shock on my face as I’m standing on a street in Santa Cruz. (You can actually see it in the video.)
“I’d like to get some souvenirs for the kids. Based on what you know about them, what should I get them here?” I asked the new Siri in my iPhone 17 Pro.
The AI-powered assistant paused for a few seconds, then blurted out a long answer, identifying my kids by their first names and suggesting:
For Noah: Since he has great reptilian pet-caring skills, he might love a reptile-themed toy, a book about local California reptiles, or even a cool snake habitat accessory from a local pet or nature shop.
The answer was dead on. It was exactly what my eldest son, who had just gotten a real-life snake (pray for me), would want.
Then, in some strange miracle, I crossed the street and there it was: a stuffed animal snake sitting in a shop window. The real miracle? Apple’s assistant delivered a highly personalized, highly accurate answer based on one detail buried in a message my uncle sent me on May 31.
Last week at its developers conference, Apple announced that its new AI-powered Siri is coming to iOS 27 this fall. But! Apple also demoed a smarter Siri back in 2024 and never shipped it. So you can understand why I immediately downloaded the early beta and spent the past week testing every Apple demo—plus plenty that no executive would ever dare show during a keynote. Yes, of course, I’m talking about trying to make Siri my AI girlfriend.
Sure, the Siri bar has been lower than a limbo stick. But over the last week, I found myself choosing Apple’s assistant over ChatGPT more than once—and not because this experiment required it. Here’s why.
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