This week, the new and improved Siri is right around the corner, and Apple is scaling back it's health-related AI plans.
The Siri You've Been Waiting For Might Actually Be Coming
It turns out that the long-promised Siri upgrade could finally land next month, if the rumours are to be believed. iOS 26.4 is expected to arrive in late March or early April, and it's supposedly bringing the Siri improvements Apple first showed off way back at WWDC 2024. Remember that demo where Siri could tell you where you met someone by pulling details from your emails and messages? Nearly two years later, it's apparently actually happening.
This is meant to be the big one. We're not talking about Siri learning a few more facts or understanding your accent slightly better. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and code found in recent betas, iOS 26.4 should give Siri on-screen awareness and the ability to handle proper multi-step tasks across different apps. The clever bit? It's reportedly powered by Google's Gemini AI models, though Apple will apparently keep that partnership quiet. From your perspective, Siri should just suddenly seem a lot less rubbish.
The practical stuff sounds genuinely useful, assuming it works as advertised. You're supposed to be able to spot an address on screen and say "add this to Contacts" without any faff. See a photo and tell Siri to "send this to Sarah" and it should work out which Sarah, which app to use, and handle the whole thing. Ask about your mum's flight or where you're meeting her for lunch and Siri is meant to pull the details from Mail, Messages and Calendar without you needing to dig through everything yourself. These are the kinds of actually helpful interactions people have wanted for years, if Apple can deliver them properly.
But let's talk about the elephant in the room. Apple announced these features in 2024 as part of the initial Apple Intelligence launch. They didn't ship. Then they got delayed again. And again. Internal testing apparently showed performance problems, which led Apple to bring in Google rather than keep struggling on their own. Fair enough, but it doesn't change the fact that iPhone users have been waiting nearly two years for something Apple confidently demonstrated on stage.
The technology behind it seems solid, at least on paper. The new system reportedly uses what Apple calls Foundation Models version 10, with around 1.2 trillion parameters compared to the previous 150 billion. That's a proper upgrade. Word is the first beta will land this month, with Apple planning some kind of reveal in late February before the public release in March.
One thing to manage expectations on: not everything's coming at once. The more advanced stuff, like having full chatbot-style conversations with Siri, is apparently being saved for iOS 27 later this year. So even when 26.4 arrives, you're getting the foundation rather than the complete package.
Beyond Siri, iOS 26.4 is rumoured to include the usual collection of smaller bits. Nine new emoji (including a trombone and Bigfoot, for some reason), folders in the Freeform app, and better credit card AutoFill from the Passwords app when you're using other applications. There's also something vague about a Sports Tier for Apple TV, though nobody seems quite sure what that means yet.
These are all fine. Folders in Freeform makes sense if you use it. The Passwords thing is handy. But let's be clear, these aren't headline features. They're the kind of incremental maintenance updates that should happen regularly without much fuss.
The real question is whether this Siri upgrade will actually work as advertised. Apple has form for showing impressive demos that don't quite match up to real-world performance once millions of people are hammering away at the thing daily. That said, the fact they've reportedly brought Google in suggests they're taking it seriously enough to get proper help rather than stubbornly trying to do everything themselves. That's at least encouraging.
If it delivers, iOS 26.4 could be a genuine step forward for Siri. If it doesn't, we'll be having this same conversation again in another year or two. Either way, we'll know soon enough.
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Apple's Health AI Plans Just Hit the Brakes
It turns out that Apple's big health AI push isn't quite as big or imminent as we thought. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company has scaled back Project Mulberry, its long-rumoured AI health coach that was supposed to arrive this year. Instead of launching as a complete service, individual features will trickle out over time through regular Health app updates.
The interesting bit here is why. Eddy Cue, Apple's services chief who took over the health and fitness teams last year after longtime COO Jeff Williams retired, apparently looked at what Apple was building and wasn't convinced. According to people familiar with the matter, Cue told colleagues that Apple needs to move faster and be more competitive in health. He specifically pointed to companies like Oura and Whoop, saying their iPhone apps offer more compelling and useful features than what Apple had planned.
That's quite a thing to hear from a senior Apple executive. These aren't massive tech giants, they're relatively focused health companies that have built strong followings with their rings and fitness trackers. If Apple's internal assessment is that a startup like Oura is delivering better features through an iPhone app than what Apple itself was preparing to launch, that tells you something about how the project was going.
Project Mulberry was supposed to be Apple's answer to the AI health coaching space. The plan included a completely revamped Health app with an AI assistant trained on data from Apple's own physicians, personalised recommendations based on your Apple Watch data, educational videos from health experts, and features like using your iPhone's camera to analyse how you walk. Some inside Apple were apparently calling it "Health Plus", which suggests there might have been subscription plans involved.
The project was originally slated to launch with iOS 26, then got delayed as Apple's health and AI divisions went through multiple organisational changes. Now it's been wound down entirely as a unified service. Some of the planned features will still arrive, just spread out as individual Health app updates rather than as one big launch. Apple's also continuing work on things like the walking analysis tool and an AI chatbot for health questions, though there's no clear timeline for when any of this actually ships.
Cue is also reportedly considering changes to Apple Fitness Plus, the £9.99-per-month workout service that competes with Peloton. No details on what those changes might involve, but the implication is that Fitness Plus isn't deliveringwhat Apple hoped either.
The broader context here is that health has been a key focus for Apple for years. Tim Cook has repeatedly said that healthcare will be Apple's greatest contribution to society. The Apple Watch has genuinely useful health features, from heart rate monitoring to ECG to fall detection. But turning passive health tracking into active health coaching is a different challenge entirely, particularly when AI needs to provide reliable, medically sound advice.
Companies like Oura and Whoop have found success by focusing narrowly on specific use cases. Oura's ring is brilliant at sleep tracking and recovery metrics. Whoop built a following with athletes by providing detailed strain and recovery data. Both have spent years refining their algorithms and their apps. Apple, meanwhile, was apparently trying to build something much broader and got bogged down in the complexity.
There's also the matter of competition in the AI health space heating up considerably. Google has AI features in Fitbit, Samsung's working on AI coaching with large language models, and established digital health companies already offer AI-driven guidance for chronic conditions. Apple's usual approach of taking time to get things right works fine when you're first to market or have a clear advantage. It's trickier when competitors are moving quickly and your internal team can't keep pace.
Looking ahead, Gurman reports that with iOS 27, the revamped Siri will support more advanced health-related queries across the Health app. So some of this functionality might eventually arrive, just through Siri rather than as a standalone health coach service.
It's worth remembering that Apple built a whole production studio in Oakland, California to create the health education videos for this service. That studio is being repurposed, with some content potentially arriving this year, but it shows how far along development had gone before Cue pulled the plug.
The decision to scale back rather than push forward with a subpar product is probably the right call. Better to acknowledge that what you've built isn't competitive enough than to launch something disappointing and damage trust in Apple's health features. But it does raise questions about whether Apple's health ambitions match its ability to execute, particularly in a space where nimbler competitors are setting the pace.
That's all from me this week...
Normal service has been suspended this week because I'm currently living surrounded by cardboard boxes and can't find my laptop charger, let alone curate interesting content for you. We're in the thick of moving house, which turns out to be less "exciting new chapter" and more "why do we own three cheese graters?"
Normal service resumes next week, assuming I can remember which box has my sanity in it.
