Apple’s long-delayed next-gen Siri won’t just be smarter. It will use App Intents to let you control iPhone apps with your voice.
However, due to reliability concerns, Apple may limit this feature’s rollout to select third-party apps.
Siri’s next upgrade could bring genuine hands-free control
At WWDC24, Apple promised a “new era for Siri,” but it never fully arrived. As part of the demo, Apple showcased how iPhone users could use their voice to control and take actions inside apps.
But then, in March 2025, Apple pushed back the new Siri to spring 2026.
App Intents support will likely be the star of the revamped Siri when it arrives next year. Picture this: you ask Siri to send a photo to your wife, and it just happens — no taps, no swipes.
Apple first introduced the App Intents API with iOS 16 in 2022, allowing third-party apps to integrate more deeply with Siri.
The company knows how crucial this feature will be, and so it is working on nailing the experience.
“Internally, testing and perfecting this feature has become a top priority for [Apple’s] global data operations team, the same group that compares Siri and Apple Intelligence outputs to raw data, hunting for errors and providing information for potential fixes,” reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman in the latest edition of the Power On newsletter.
However, not all is perfect, with Apple engineers struggling to ensure the feature works reliably across a range of third-party apps without any accuracy problems.
“There are worries about the software failing in categories where precision is nonnegotiable, like in health or banking apps,” says Gurman.
A limited rollout with support for selected apps
Apple reportedly will ship App Intents integration alongside its bigger Siri overhaul next spring. However, the feature won’t reach everyone on day one. Plus, Apple might limit support initially to system apps and select third-party apps. Apple is currently testing the framework with Uber, Threads, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube and other popular apps.
For security reasons, the company could disable App Intents support for banking and other sensitive apps.
While such limitations might frustrate users, they should help Apple avoid a repeat of the embarrassing missteps that plagued the Apple Intelligence rollout, like inaccurate news summaries.
Rajesh has been closely following and writing about the latest happenings in the world of mobile for nearly a decade now. While he prefers Android, he does not deny the superiority of Apple’s products and ecosystem.
