Testing the updated Siri AI in the iOS 27 operating system showed that despite years of promotion, basic voice recognition errors continue to degrade the user experience.
As a technology enthusiast, the author eagerly awaited the release of iOS 27, which they installed on their iPhone 16e last week. The main reason for this anticipation was the opportunity to test the updated Siri AI.
Over the past two years, Apple has actively promoted its devices as being specifically designed for 'Apple Intelligence.' Renaming this feature to Siri AI seems typical for Apple—a preference for proprietary terminology to demonstrate superiority over competing tech giants.
The main advantage of this significant update was gaining access to a smarter Siri AI, which was supposed to interact intuitively and seamlessly, a stark contrast to the previous version, which was merely an improved voice assistant capable only of simple tasks, such as setting a timer.
Immediately after completing the update, the author decided to test the new system's capabilities. They knew their photos were meticulously tagged: there were pictures of their old dog Bowie (named after David Bowie) and a younger dog Tuyla (named after a character from the series Schitt's Creek).
Despite both dogs being clearly labeled throughout their photo library, Siri's request to show a video of Tuyla was unsuccessful. In four separate attempts, the same disappointing result occurred: Siri mistakenly believed the command was misspoken and repeatedly offered to play trailers for the Twilight movies, which the author was not interested in.
Although the author has not yet conducted a comprehensive review of all features, the first impression was extremely negative. In the author's opinion, the new Siri AI still fails to meet high expectations.