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iOS 27 is billed as mostly a Snow Leopard-style update — a deep system overhaul focused on speed and reliability.
But it’s also the coming-out party for Siri AI, Apple’s smarter personal assistant.
I’ve been using the developer beta since day one, and it’s been an unusually stable update from the start.
I’ve suffered only a couple of minor bugs and glitches, which is a great sign that iOS 27 will deliver on its core promises of better speed, stability and battery life.
As for Siri AI, I have had a much more mixed experience. I’ve been trying to train myself to use it for more and more things, but it’s hard to get over the Siri of old.
Almost every time I tried anything ambitious, the new Siri failed. And instead of persisting, I just gave up and performed the task myself.
I suspect a lot of people will experience similar things in the upcoming weeks and months. Siri AI shows a lot of promise, but many people will face a learning curve. At minimum, they will need to consciously forget the old way they used to do things. Good luck!
The good news is, there’s plenty more worth your attention in iOS 27.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Now that Siri AI is out, the unreleased hardware Apple is sitting on could arrive very soon. And there’s quite a raft of it.
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Wow: Tolerances on the iPhone Duo are so tight, there’s a new setting to accommodate cases that might slightly impede the screen.
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Perhaps because I’ve got scaly, dried-out fingertips, Touch ID never works reliably for me, even when I retrain the system (like I did this weekend, on my iPad, and it’s already not working!). So I’m starting to have grave misgivings about my planned iPhone Duo purchase. The good news is, Apple is contemplating adding Face ID to the Duo eventually, perhaps with an AI twist.
Don’t miss the top X post below about the design inspiration for the Duo’s signature animation. It actually looks pretty plausible.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
First reactions to iPhone Duo: Cult of Mac podcast #32
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One more thing ...
My job is to say when something sucks rather than sugarcoat it.
Today’s poll
What iOS 27 feature gets you most excited?
Results from last Friday’s poll
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