Siri got lots of airtime at last year's WWDC – but not this year
There’s no denying that Apple made a major mis-step when it showed off impressive new Siri features during last year’s WWDC, before doubling-down in an iPhone 16 ad. The company was forced to delete the ad and walk back the timing.
That led even the most upbeat of Apple commenters to criticize the company for showing off “vaporware,” implying that the demos had been faked. But two Apple execs have now categorically denied this, and said everything it showed at the time was the real thing …
Last year’s demos of new Siri
Apple demonstrated impressive new Siri capabilities at last year’s WWDC, saying they were coming within the year. This was followed by further demos in an ad for the iPhone 16 line-up.
The ad featured Bella Ramsey spotting someone whose name she couldn’t remember. She quickly ducked out of sight to ask Siri the name of the person she met at a particular restaurant the previous month. Siri immediately tells her the name, presumably pulling this data from her calendar or an email on her phone. It was an extremely impressive demo of the power of the next-gen Siri working with personal context.
However, Apple was forced to admit that the new capability wouldn’t in fact launch later that year, as it had promised.
The vaporware claim
Following this, it was widely assumed that the keynote demo and ad had been completely faked, showing off features Apple planned to create but which didn’t actually exist at the time.
Even Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who enjoyed a close relationship with Apple, noted that none of this had been demo’d in person to journalists, leading him to accuse the company of showing “vaporware.”
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