According to Digital Trends, Apple is closing in on its Siri reboot and has planned hands-on demos for the second half of February. The upgraded assistant’s rollout is tied to iOS 26.4, which is expected to enter beta testing next month and ship publicly in March or early April. The core upgrade is supposed to move Siri past simple commands by letting it use personal data and on-screen context to complete tasks. Internally, Apple calls the system Apple Foundation Models version 10, but it reportedly needed Google’s Gemini to hit this schedule. The underlying model is roughly 1.2 trillion parameters and will be hosted on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers.
The February reality check
Here’s the thing: demos are easy. Apple can script a perfect flow where Siri seamlessly grabs info from your screen and your calendar to book a dinner. It’ll look like magic. But the real test is the tenth try, or the fiftieth, when you’re in a noisy car and the assistant has to parse a messy, half-finished thought. That’s where these context-aware features earn trust—or destroy it. So these late-February briefings, whether a big event or small media sessions, aren’t just a show. They’re the first real pressure test to see if this works as repeatable engineering, not just a clever demo.
The Google-shaped engine
This is the fascinating bit. To get this out on time, Apple reportedly leaned on Google’s Gemini. Now, they’ve wrapped it in their own branding—Apple Foundation Models v10—which is smart PR. But it tells us something critical: Apple’s own in-house models weren’t ready for prime time. Relying on cloud-scale models hosted on Private Cloud Compute servers can speed up development, sure. But it immediately raises flags about responsiveness, what happens offline, and how consistent the experience will be in different regions. It’s a trade-off: faster progress, but potentially a more fragmented and less reliable first-gen experience.
What to watch in the spring
When the iOS 26.4 beta drops, ignore the marketing. Look for the fine print. Which iPhone models actually get these new Siri smarts? My guess is it’ll be limited to the latest Pros, which would be a brutal but typical Apple move. How does Apple explain the privacy controls? What data stays on-device versus shooting up to their cloud? And most importantly, can the assistant *take action* based on context, or does it just recognize it and then hand you off to an app? If Apple nails this, it’s the biggest Siri change in a decade. If they fumble the rollout or the reliability, it’s another missed promise. Basically, the beta will tell us everything.
