According to Tom’s Guide, the smarter “Siri 2.0” we’ve been waiting for since 2024 could finally arrive in a beta for iOS 16.4 as soon as next month. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg reports Apple is planning an announcement and demos in the second half of February, with a formal public launch by early April at the latest. This update will finally deliver the Apple Intelligence features promised two summers ago, including Personal Context, on-screen awareness, and app-based actions. The report also suggests an even more significant “Siri 3.0” overhaul is planned for iOS 27 at WWDC this summer, which will leverage Google’s Gemini infrastructure for chatbot-style interactions. This follows a year-plus delay for the initial Siri 2.0 capabilities.
The Long Road to Siri 2.0
Here’s the thing: we were supposed to have this already. Apple showed off these exact features—Siri understanding what’s on your screen, remembering your past chats, actually doing things in apps—way back at WWDC 2024. And then… nothing. Radio silence through all of 2025. So a February beta feels less like an exciting launch and more like a relief. It’s basically Apple finally making good on a very old promise. The fact that Gurman, who nailed the Apple-Google AI deal, is reporting this gives it serious weight. But after such a long wait, you have to wonder if the features will feel groundbreaking or just… finally adequate.
Why Google, And What’s Next?
The really interesting nugget in this report is the shift to Google’s infrastructure for the rumored Siri 3.0 this summer. Gurman’s backstory on the corporate negotiations is fun, but the practical impact is huge. Using Gemini’s backend could be what finally makes Siri fast and precise enough to feel competitive. But it raises a massive question: what happens to Apple’s privacy pitch? Apple’s Private Cloud Compute was their big promise that your AI data wouldn’t be visible to them—or anyone. Moving core processes to Google seems to complicate that story dramatically. Will users care if Siri gets *that* much better? Maybe not. But it’s a fundamental shift in strategy.
A Two-Phase, Awkward Launch
This sets up a weird launch cycle. First, we get Siri 2.0 in iOS 16.4, which is just the 2024 features finally arriving. Then, just a few months later at WWDC, they’ll presumably announce Siri 3.0 for iOS 27. That’s awkward! It makes the 2.0 update feel like a stopgap, a consolation prize for the long delay. And it puts immense pressure on the 3.0 features to be a massive leap. Proactive suggestions and ChatGPT-style conversation? That’s the dream. But we’ve been dreaming about a better Siri for a decade. I’ll believe it when I can have a fluid, unscripted conversation with it that doesn’t end with me just opening the app myself.
The Bigger Picture
Look, this is Apple playing a very long, very cautious game in AI. They waited, watched the landscape, and cut a deal with (in their view) the most stable, enterprise-ready partner in Google. The February beta is them finally getting the foundational, on-device intelligence out the door. The summer WWDC announcement will be about cloud-powered, generative smarts. It’s a one-two punch. If they pull it off, the slow pace will be forgotten. If Siri 3.0 is buggy or the privacy trade-offs are too stark, this entire two-year delay will look like a strategic blunder. The next six months will tell us everything about whether Siri can finally shed its reputation as a digital assistant punchline.
