The new version of Siri, Siri AI, launched to the masses this month as part of iOS 27. The new Siri is rolling out gradually to users via a waitlist, and is labelled as a ‘beta’ indicating that Apple still has some work to do in follow-up releases.
The new Siri is much better at answering questions with access to rich knowledge, can search through your messages and notes for personal context queries, and can take action based on what is on your screen with onscreen awareness. However, the new Siri is not being welcomed with open arms by everyone …
Based on social media posts, there are a few reasons why the new Siri is disappointing users. Some expect it to be able to perform tasks that Apple simply never promised would be possible, while others note they are hitting performance and reliability bugs that make using the assistant on a regular basis a frustrating affair.
Here’s the five main categories of complaints we’ve seen from people trying Siri AI so far:
Network connectivity issues
Some users trying out new Siri repeatedly see a “Sorry, something went wrong” error when invoking it. This appears to be caused by some kind of network communication issue between the phone and the Siri cloud backend, potentially solved by disabling a VPN or changing Wi-Fi network settings.
However, the Siri interface does not tell the user exactly what the problem is, so they are left stuck with a ‘useless’ voice assistant. We also suspect the Apple cloud infrastructure is experiencing some intermittent downtime, which can also cause requests to fail.
Indexing problems: new Siri cannot always find things that old Siri could
While new Siri is meant to be much better at finding things on your device, some users are finding the opposite to be the case. When asking something like “Add eggs to my grocery list in Reminders”, Siri will say it cannot find the list. We have seen repeated cases of people trying to use new Siri to turn off all their alarms, only for it to answer to say the user has no alarms. Others report that their HomeKit accessories cannot be found consistently by name.
These issues are seemingly related to underlying search indexing bugs, but it’s unclear if there are steps user can follow to remedy the situation. Some Apple Watch users even hit extremely odd cases like ‘I can’t set a timer because the Clock app isn’t installed on this device’.
Requires iPhone to be unlocked to answer requests
New Siri seems to require the device be unlocked for many requests, even if the ‘allow Siri when locked’ toggle is turned on in Settings. This applies to all sorts of queries, which old Siri never required the device to be unlocked for. Naturally, many people often try to invoke Siri in situations where the phone is locked, like in a car or on the go with AirPods.
It seems like whenever new Siri tries to access the semantic index to garner personal context, it fails if the phone is locked. But this makes even simple commands like ‘Send message to [person name]’ more annoying, when old Siri did not have such a requirement.
Slow to respond to queries, especially on Apple Watch
Another common refrain is that new Siri is just slower to answer for them. Although on-device models play a role in how new Siri operates, much of its processing happens on the cloud with Private Cloud Compute, and a slow network connection therefore makes new Siri slow to respond, even for basic requests like sending messages or checking notifications.
The speed complaints are especially true when using Siri AI with watchOS 27 running on an Apple Watch Series 9 or later, where even saying something like ‘start a 5 minute timer’ can take many seconds to resolve, a disappointing regression as they used to be processed almost instantly.
Missing features or unreliable commands compared to old Siri
Despite everything that new Siri can do, there are some features of old Siri that have not yet been exposed to the new Siri system. For instance, Apple documents that asking about your Health app data is not currently supported by Siri AI. People that used the ChatGPT integration can no longer prefix their command with “Use ChatGPT” to have their request directed accordingly.
There are also some particular phrasings of commands that old Siri would understand but new Siri gets confused about. Naturally, this annoys users who have become accustomed to asking something specific on a regular basis. This is partly due to the fact that new Siri has the potential to do so much more, that some specificly-worded queries have become ambiguous compared to the much smaller scope of classic Siri.
Aside from these classes of bugs, we’ve also seen users complain about the way new Siri is presented in the user interface. This includes criticisms of the annoyingly prominent ‘Ask Siri’ buttons that have been added across the operating system, the lack of a visible transcript of what the phone heard the user said in the new Dynamic Island UI, the fact that the middle of the screen swipe-down gesture to reveal their notifications has been commandeered to show Siri & Spotlight instead, and other complaints.
As mentioned before, the new Siri is marked as a beta and this signals that more capabilities and fixes will follow in future updates. Apple has not yet disclosed a roadmap, though, apart from announcing a rollout to a handful of more languages, coming in October.
In the meantime, if you are experiencing any of the sorts of issues described above, you may want to go back to classic Siri:
How to turn off Siri AI and go back to old Siri
The easiest way to disable Siri AI on your device and quickly switch back to classic Siri is to use controls in Screen Time. Open the Settings app and navigate to Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Siri and change Allowed Siri version from “Siri AI (Beta)” to “Siri Classic”.
You can then go back to this menu later and toggle it back if you want to try Siri AI again.
If you don’t want to use Screen Time, you can also go into Siri settings directly and turn off Siri altogether. When you re-enable it, you should be able to choose between enabling Siri Classic or Siri AI.
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