Although Apple is thrilled about the new Siri AI integrated into iOS 27, maybe artificial intelligence isn’t your thing. Fortunately, you can opt out of Apple’s new voice assistant.
iOS 27 lets you turn Siri off completely. Alternatively, you can switch from the new AI-powered Siri back to Siri Classic.
And if you absolutely do not want artificial intelligence in your iPhone, you can disable it … though that process is far more complex than is ideal.
Three years is a long time in the tech world. And forever in the world of smartphones. If you got an iPhone 15 Pro in 2023, the iPhone 18 Pro will look mighty tempting.
Are the improved cameras, longer battery life and faster charging speeds enough to justify upgrading from the iPhone 15 Pro, especially with the higher starting price? Here’s how the two compare.
Apple seeded the first iOS 27.2 beta to developers on Wednesday, giving them the chance to test several notable changes and improvements.
The company is skipping beta testing iOS 27.1, an unusual move but one with a good “Duo” reason behind it. Below is a rundown of all the new stuff in iOS 27.2 beta 1. (We will update the post as we discover more.)
Your iPhone’s next big software update just arrived. Apple released iOS 27 on Monday, fixing many of the annoyances that iOS 26 inadvertently introduced last year, while also tweaking Liquid Glass to improve readability.
Alongside iOS 27, Siri AI also launches in beta today, finally bringing Apple’s AI assistant on par with Google, ChatGPT and others.
BERLIN — Ugreen is best known for chargers, cables and other accessories. But at its IFA 2026 launch event here, the company showed something far more ambitious: a smart home hub called HomeAgent that uses local AI as its brain.
The HomeAgent series is expensive and unproven. But it rethinks what a smart-home hub can be. It also raises the question: By the time Apple enters the smart home market, will local AI already be the norm?
Apple’s new support document explains how you can speed up Spotlight indexing on your device. It also goes into detail about how Spotlight indexing works.
Many iPhone, iPad and Mac users will face this indexing slowdown once Apple releases its next-generation operating systems next month.
Apple’s deal to bring its AI tools to China finally cleared Beijing’s regulatory hurdles, paving the way for Apple Intelligence to launch in the country. Apple trained its own large language model specifically for Chinese devices, but leaned on Alibaba’s support to pull it off.
Apple reportedly wants to secure content deals with publishers to give Siri AI access to the latest news and information. It is supposedly proposing multi-year agreements with publishers for this.
As part of the deal, Apple will pay publishers every time their content is used or displayed in Siri AI.
After almost a month-long gap, Apple rolled out iOS 27 beta 5 to developers on Monday. With September fast approaching, the new beta adds the necessary polish before the OS’s public release this fall.
Below are all the changes spotted in iOS 27 beta 5 so far, including the (possible) name of the first folding iPhone.
When Siri AI launches in the fall, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will be available at no extra cost on the devices that support it, but that could change in the future. Apple CEO Tim Cook raised the possibility on Thursday.
Here’s what we know now.
After years of lagging the competition, Apple is “nearly ready to launch” three new smart devices, according to a new report. An updated Apple TV and HomePod mini will debut as soon as this fall.
There’s also the long-rumored smart home hub, which could arrive anytime between October and early next year.
Apple released the first iOS 27 public beta Monday, giving everyday iPhone users a chance to experience the latest features.
By most accounts, it’s stable enough to download now and run without too much worry. The biggest bummer is that you’ll still need to get in line to experience the new, improved Siri AI.
The basic iPad could become a much smarter buy this fall: the iPad 12 will reportedly get a processor boost that will let the tablet take advantage of Apple’s new AI features.
Here’s what to expect.
Your Apple Watch’s Siri timer problem just got fixed. With watchOS 27 beta 3, you can finally tell Siri to add two minutes to an already running timer — instead of getting stonewalled with “What do you want to set the timer to?”
If you’ve ever pulled a tray out of the oven a little early just because doing timer math in your head felt easier than fighting Siri, you know exactly why this matters. It’s a teeny tiny fix, but it does away with the everyday friction that made your watch feel less useful.
In the latest iOS 27 developer beta, Siri AI can pull live information from third-party apps on your iPhone. It’s the kind of feature Siri should’ve had years ago — and now, it’s finally here.
Right now, it only appears to work with a couple of electric vehicle apps, letting you ask Siri things like your car’s battery level. But it’s a signal of where Siri AI is headed — an assistant that finally acts as a bridge across your entire phone, not just Apple’s walled garden.
Apple just responsded to three YouTube channels that filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this year over AI training data — and Cupertino isn’t apologizing. In short, its defense is that these creators uploaded the videos online for free, so they shouldn’t be shocked that Apple looked at them.
Even if you haven’t uploaded a video in your life, here’s why you should care. This lawsuit is about how AI features baked into your iPhone actually got smart, and whether the people who made it possible got anything for it.
Apple just rewired a gesture you’ve used every day since 2011, and you probably won’t notice it until it’s too late. iOS 27 hands to the new Siri AI the exact swipe you’ve used to check notifications, and it doesn’t even ask nicely first.
Turn on Siri AI in the latest iOS 27 beta, and swiping down from the top center of your screen will no longer open the Notification Center but wake up Siri instead. Your alerts aren’t going anywhere, but you’ll need to relearn where to find them.
Siri AI, Apple’s next-generation version of its voice assistant, might push everyone’s HomePods toward obsolescence. Technology is moving on, apparently leaving these smart speakers behind.
Still, the devices aren’t about to become rubbish. They’ll just miss out on some of the new Apple Intelligence features. Here’s what’s going on.
The hack that some Mac users were using to try out the new Siri AI, skipping the waitlist, no longer works.
Apple released the second developer beta of all its OS 27 updates yesterday. In macOS 27 developer beta 2, the hidden Terminal command no longer enables Siri AI. After you update, you’ll find yourself back on Apple’s waitlist. If you previously enabled it on your Mac, your access will be revoked.
But no worries — some users on Reddit may have found a way to get yourself accepted fast.
While visionOS 27 is coming to every Apple Vision Pro ever sold, two of its standout features will only work on the second-gen headset with an M5 processor.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: After more than a week spent hands-on with the first iOS 27 developer beta, Griffin and Leander give us a status update on what works and what really, really doesn’t.
The good news is, Siri AI seems legitimately useful. The bad news is that the betas are a little rough around the edges. (After all, betas gonna beta.) Still, there’s plenty to talk about as we go over the best new features.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
The new Siri AI in iOS 27 shows up as a glowing pill on the iPhone — and it might just be teasing the iPhone 18 Pro’s biggest design change. On the iPhone 17, the Dynamic Island forces Siri AI to stretch wide and flat to mask the cutout, sacrificing its intended shape.
It looks out of place. But if you pick up an iPhone 18 Pro this fall, that might change. Siri’s pill shape on the current iPhone results from a hardware constraint, and rumors indicate Apple already engineered a fix into its upcoming flagship phone.
Did Apple finally get it right — is the new Siri AI useful? In my early Siri AI testing, I think the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” I took the three biggest demos from Apple’s keynote and replicated them with my own questions based on my own personal context. In nearly all the tests, it performed just as well as Apple’s examples.
I’ve been throwing Siri AI, now available in the first developer beta of iOS 27, all kinds of other questions, too. Foolishly, I put the beta on my main iPhone, so I’ve been using it as my one and only voice assistant for a week now.
While its smarts aren’t going to shock you if you’ve used a chatbot before, its private, secure access to your entire digital life is something nothing else can offer. (And, some would say, an anticompetitive advantage.)
Siri AI is the real deal.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: For once, Siri doesn’t leave us exasperated! After a week of WWDC26 surprises, we’re genuinely stoked about the promise of Siri AI.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Even after updating all your devices to the OS 27 betas, you can’t get the new Siri AI right away. There’s a waitlist, and users are reporting that it can take days to get accepted. But on macOS Golden Gate, you can skip the waitlist with a little Terminal command.
First, you’ll need to install macOS Golden Gate. If you want to play it safe by installing it on an external volume, you’ll be disappointed — Apple Intelligence only works when macOS is running from your internal storage. So playing it safe is a little harder, unless you have enough free internal space to make a partition.
Whatever your approach, here’s how you can try out the new Siri on your Mac right now.
Update: In macOS 27 developer beta 2, this method no longer works, but there may be another solution.