{"id":3720,"date":"2026-07-14T03:39:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2026-07-14T03:39:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:39:31","slug":"siri-ai-public-beta-preview-ios-27-hands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3720","title":{"rendered":"Siri AI is already changing how I use my iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"


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iOS 27 escaped the developer world today with the launch of the first public beta. I\u2019ve been testing the new operating system since early June, looking for quirks and seeing if it can live up to the hype Apple promised in the keynote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This year\u2019s iOS upgrades are what one might call a Snow Leopard update<\/a>. That means it\u2019s light on new features and instead focused on fixing things that were broken and speeding up processes across the OS. App launches, Photos search results, and AirDrop transfers should all be faster. The Messages app now supports in-line replies and end-to-end encryption for RCS messages. Liquid Glass has gotten more refined, with better legibility around hard edges and text. These are all wonderful updates, particularly for those who have aging iPhones. But by far the biggest and most anticipated change in this update is that Apple finally, actually for real shipped the revamped Siri AI, in the form of an opt-in beta program. And this time, I think Apple might have actually done it. Or at least it finally laid the foundation for a successful version of Siri.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last week, I was trying to decide if I had time to go to a free concert in the city. The show was four hours long with three acts, and I only really wanted to see one. I couldn\u2019t find the order the bands were performing on the event page, which meant this was a perfect opportunity to pressure-test Siri AI. So I swiped down from the top of the screen and asked, \u201cWhat order are the bands playing in?\u201d Siri spun its new little wheel for a few seconds, then correctly told me the information I was hoping for: The band I wanted to see was playing last.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s practically stopped me from opening my browser for most things<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The promise of the new Siri AI is to change the way you use your phone. Before, you went to an app and told the app what you wanted to do (call a car, set a timer, order lunch); now, you say what you want to do first, and Siri AI tries to look through all the apps and information available to it to handle the rest. So when I asked about the concert, Siri looked at what was on the webpage, then searched the web, found the answer, and presented it to me. I didn\u2019t need to jump around browser tabs or look at the band\u2019s Instagram page; it was just there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the month I\u2019ve been using Siri AI, it\u2019s surprised me in tons of different ways. On my first day testing the beta during Apple\u2019s dev conference, I was able to ask \u201cCan you add my WWDC briefings to my calendar?\u201d and Siri looked in my email, parsed the data, and added six individual events with correct times to my calendar. I\u2019ll note, it could only add it to my Apple<\/em> calendar, but I\u2019ll get to why shortly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These interactions have genuinely altered my brain chemistry a bit. Now, I almost always try to use Siri first, just to see if it can perform the action I need or answer a simple question. It\u2019s practically stopped me from opening my browser for most things, since it\u2019s easier, faster, and more enjoyable to just swipe down from the top of the screen and type a prompt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Onscreen awareness has probably been the most helpful addition for me. Being able to ask Siri about what\u2019s on my screen saves me a lot of tapping around. When it\u2019s able to take action from that onscreen awareness, like adding an event to my calendar or directing me to an address on my screen, it\u2019s even better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More often than I\u2019ve expected, Siri is able to do what I ask it to, and when it performs a somewhat complex task, it feels like magic. But when it hits a wall, I\u2019m reminded of why it\u2019s going to take a bit of work to get to the \u201cit just works\u201d universe where Siri not<\/em> working is the exception, not the norm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"There<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

There are still kinks with Siri AI. In the first image, Siri didn\u2019t recognize that my request referred to the page I was looking at and added a generic reminder.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Siri\u2019s ability to translate your request into a specific action seems to be one of the main areas where Apple is still working out kinks. For example, when I asked it to \u201cremind me to buy these tickets when they go on sale\u201d while looking at a concert page, it simply made a reminder called \u201cbuy these tickets when they go on sale.\u201d I had to be careful to say \u201cbuy tickets to this<\/em> when they go on sale\u201d to trigger Siri to actually look at my screen and search the web for the ticket availability. And most of the time, asking Siri to \u201croute\u201d me to a location didn\u2019t do anything, but \u201cdirect\u201d me to a location did. I imagine its word correlation may improve over time as more data comes in, but when the entire point is being able to talk to a computer in natural language and not rely on keyword speak, it can be frustrating.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Right now, if you\u2019re on the Siri AI preview on the iOS 27 beta, Apple apps are the only ones with access to Siri\u2019s new capabilities. If you live inside Apple\u2019s ecosystem, everything is great. Your data probably exists inside Messages, Mail, and Photos, and when you want to take action, you\u2019re adding to-do items to Reminders and Notes. I use a few of these apps daily, and when they work together, like adding a list of events from my email to my calendar, it really is like a glimpse at the future. But if I ask Siri \u201cWhen did Daniel say he was free to play Dota<\/em>?\u201d then Siri won\u2019t have any idea, because Daniel and I only message each other through Telegram, which the system doesn\u2019t have access to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A still from Apple\u2019s video on how developers can integrate with Siri AI<\/em>.<\/figcaption>Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The two main updates developers need to implement for Siri AI support are entities and intents. Entities represent the type of data an app can contain, like a photo, recipe, playlist, or note. If an app adds entities to Siri AI, Siri knows exactly what type of data it can pull from that app to use for your personal context. Conversely, an intent tells Siri what it can actually do with that data, like play, save, or delete. App entities and intents allow Siri to control and pull data from them, and Siri\u2019s semantic layer handles the understanding of your words. The app\u2019s entities and intents allow those semantics to control and pull data from them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And if your digital life exists mostly outside of Apple apps, it will take time for the apps you need to play well with Siri AI. It definitely won\u2019t happen during the public beta. Developers can now build entities and intents against the iOS 27 SDK, but until the SDK itself is out of beta, you, as a user, are out of luck; they can\u2019t actually push Siri AI updates to their apps until the full version of iOS 27 is available in the fall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Apple is relying a lot<\/em> on developers to update their apps to support the new Siri, but it\u2019s not like we haven\u2019t seen this before. Practically every time Apple has added a significant new feature, like Dark Mode or iPad apps, developers have had to do work to get them working properly. The difference, I imagine, is that most of the previous updates have directly affected the user experience within the developer\u2019s own app. This time, Apple is asking developers to update their apps to improve the Siri experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Siri<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Siri AI being invoked in iOS 27<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Developers I\u2019ve talked to have told me that while they\u2019re super excited about these new capabilities, updating their apps to support them is a pretty massive undertaking. \u201cThe conceptual challenge for developers is creating comprehensive support for every screen and function within an app,\u201d says Matthew Cassinelli, who worked at Workflow, the company that would be acquired by Apple and become Shortcuts. \u201cBut the transition to agent-based models allows specialized apps to surface relevant data dynamically, which makes them more useful to users who otherwise might not open those specific applications frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An example of this is the LookBack: Contacts History<\/a> app. The app shows you who you most recently added to your phone contacts, and if you forget to open it but ask Siri \u201cWho did I meet at the conference last week?\u201d it can use the app to surface the information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I can buy that argument that Siri will help surface smaller apps that users forget to open as often when it comes to smaller developers, who don\u2019t make the five or six apps most people use every single day. But the bigger question on my mind is whether or not players like Google are interested in making Siri more capable. Google makes most of its revenue from surfacing ads, and if instead of making you open Gmail to find the information you\u2019re looking for, Siri could simply surface that information at the top of your screen, Google loses out on that revenue. This said, Google is practically doing the exact same thing with AI overviews, so it\u2019s pretty obvious that it\u2019s been preparing for a world where AdSense revenue isn\u2019t its main revenue source.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The primary incentive driver I can see for Google adopting full Siri AI support is consumer choice. If one email app supports Siri AI to its full extent and Gmail doesn\u2019t, I\u2019m more likely to use the other app. I want Siri to keep performing these experiences, pulling my personal context and performing actions for me. If I start running into roadblocks for what an app is able to do, I might start looking for another one. Whether Google\u2019s own stronghold is powerful enough to keep most people around is another question.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This all remains a work in progress. Not only is this a beta OS, but a beta Siri. And it\u2019s only a partial version of the full experience we\u2019re being promised down the road. It\u2019s impressive, but what truly matters still comes next. Developers need to add support for Siri AI to live up to its potential. And Siri AI needs to correctly route and research your requests far more often than it gets tripped up. So far, I\u2019ve been surprised by how much it can do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The concert was great, by the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photography by David Imel \/ The Verge<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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