Apple opened the iOS 27 public beta on Monday, and it brings the fully rebuilt Siri to any iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV and Vision Pro that can install it. If you have ever tried to use Siri and given up, this update is the one that changes what the assistant on your phone can actually do.
The Gist
- The iOS 27 public beta went live on July 14, and anyone in the Apple Beta Software Program can install it now.
- The new Siri can read your emails, photos and messages on the device, understand what is on the screen, and hand off big general questions to ChatGPT or Gemini.
- Testers say the beta has bugs but is overall more stable than the last few Siri betas.
Have ChatGPT Recap This Article
ChatGPTMeet the New Siri, in plain words
Siri is Apple’s voice assistant, the one you talk to when you say “Hey Siri” on your iPhone. For years it has felt basic next to ChatGPT or Gemini. This iOS 27 beta is the first version most people can install where Siri finally catches up on what modern AI assistants can do.
The rollout is wider than iPhone alone. iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV and Vision Pro all get their own version of the same Siri, tuned for the size of the screen and the way you use each device. If you own several Apple products, the same assistant follows you across all of them. If you already followed the earlier story on the new Siri voice customization, you saw Apple laying the groundwork one feature at a time.
To get it on your phone today, you need to sign up for the free Apple Beta Software Program from Apple’s website, then install the iOS 27 profile on your iPhone. It is a beta, so it may crash more than a normal release. The stable version is expected in the fall alongside the new iPhone.
How the new Siri actually works on your iPhone
The old Siri could set an alarm and play music. The new Siri can look inside your device. If you ask “which photo did I take at the beach last summer”, it can pull it up. If you say “summarize the last three messages from my mom”, it can do that. If your friend texts you a lunch time and you ask “add it to my calendar”, it does the whole thing in one shot.
There is a second big change called screen-awareness. Siri can see whatever is on your screen and react to it. Open an article in Safari and ask “sum this up in three lines” and it will. Point the camera at a food label and ask “how much sugar is in this” and Siri will read the label back to you. It works like an AI layer that sits on top of every app instead of a separate box you have to talk to.
The third big change is the hand-off. When you ask a big general question like “what is quantum computing”, Siri does not try to answer alone. It hands off to ChatGPT or Gemini, whichever one you set as the default in the settings. You can also swap the default any time you want. Apple stopped fighting the outside models and made Siri the front door instead. The last big change is that the new Siri can be reached in five different ways: the classic “Hey Siri” voice, a long press on the side button, a swipe from the Dynamic Island at the top of your iPhone, a search in Spotlight, or its own standalone app. Whichever way feels natural becomes the one you use most.
Keep learning on AI Noobies:
- ChatGPT for Grandparents: 4 Everyday Uses Worth Trying
- 16 Nobel Winners Ask the World to Prepare for AI
- Claude Code Can Now Browse the Web for You
What Apple Intelligence and Foundation Models really mean here
Apple calls the AI brain of Siri Apple Intelligence. In plain words, Apple Intelligence is the pile of AI features Apple built into iOS 27. Foundation Models are the AI models Apple trained itself to power those features. The important detail is that a big part of the processing happens on your device, not on Apple’s servers. Your emails and photos are read by the model inside your iPhone.
Why does on-device matter? Because your personal data does not have to leave the phone for basic tasks. When you ask Siri to find a photo, the model looks inside your phone and answers. When you ask a general question that goes to ChatGPT, that question leaves the phone, but your emails do not. This split is Apple’s answer to the classic privacy worry about AI assistants that read everything.
Testers already spotted some funny bugs. One example doing the rounds: someone asked Siri to pull up recent news about Iran, and Siri searched the contacts app for a person called “Iran” instead. The stability was still described as better than the last few Siri betas, which is a low bar but a real one for people who remember how rough previous Apple Intelligence rollouts have been.
Zooming out, this rollout matters for the wider public debate on AI. Apple is the last of the big US tech names to catch up on the assistant race, and the fact that it accepts to hand off to ChatGPT and Gemini says a lot about who won the past two years. The head-to-head comparison between the new Siri, ChatGPT and Gemini plays out prompt after prompt in a walkthrough that lines up the same requests side by side on a single iPhone. That kind of stacked test is what will decide, over the fall, which assistant becomes the reflex on most iPhones.
How to try the new Siri on your iPhone this week
If you want to try it, step one is the free signup at beta.apple.com. Step two is installing the iOS 27 profile on the iPhone you want to test. Step three is opening the Settings app, tapping Apple Intelligence and Siri, and choosing your default outside model between ChatGPT and Gemini for the hand-off. You may need to sign into a ChatGPT or Gemini account inside the settings, or use them without signing in for the light version.
A few prompts that show off the new Siri in one minute: “find me the photo of the pizza I ate last Sunday”, “summarize the last email from my boss in two sentences”, “read the sugar amount on the label I am pointing my camera at”, “add the lunch tomorrow at 1 with Marc to my calendar”, “what does quantum computing mean, in plain words”. The first four hit the on-device part, the fifth hits the ChatGPT or Gemini hand-off.
Not sure you want to install the beta on your main iPhone? A safer path is to install it on a spare iPhone or an old iPad you no longer use as your main device. Beta versions are stable enough today to try, but they still consume battery faster and sometimes force you to restart apps. The stable version in the fall will land on every recent Apple device automatically.
The link between the new Siri and the wider AI conversation is direct. The old Siri did not really compete with ChatGPT, which is why so many people ended up installing the ChatGPT app on their iPhone. This new version could bring back a lot of daily habits inside Siri. And if you are new to AI assistants in general, the common beginner mistakes on ChatGPT also apply to the new Siri: be specific, give context, and do not be afraid to ask again in a different way.
Stay tuned on AI Noobies.
About the Author
