Apple has introduced iOS 27, and its most significant feature relies on technology Apple did not build. Siri now runs on models developed by Google, the same family behind Gemini. The full release arrives in the fall, and the public beta is available now to anyone willing to accept the risks of pre-release software.
The assistant Apple could not fix alone
Siri had two distinct problems. It struggled with requests that competing assistants had handled for years, and it had no place of its own in the system: no app, no visible history, no way to return to a conversation from the day before.
iOS 27 addresses both. The Google-based models make the assistant faster and more accurate, according to Fast Company’s account of the release. Siri also has a standalone application with a chat interface that stores previous exchanges.
Why the supplier matters more than the feature
Apple spent two years promising a rebuilt Siri and missing its own deadlines. Licensing the underlying models from Google indicates how the company now reads its position in AI: it does not expect to compete at the frontier model layer, and it has decided that shipping a working assistant matters more than owning every part of it.
That decision has precedent. Apple has bought components it could not produce competitively before, from modems to mapping data, and it has historically competed on integration, distribution and privacy rather than on raw capability. Under that logic, a language model is another component.
The dependency is still substantial. Google already pays Apple to remain the default search engine in Safari, an arrangement that has attracted years of antitrust scrutiny. Now one of the most visible software features on more than a billion iPhones depends on a competitor’s technology, which gives Google a position inside Apple’s product that Apple has generally refused to grant anyone.
The standalone app is a shift in thinking as well. Apple argued for years that assistance should be distributed throughout the operating system rather than confined to a single window. Shipping a Siri app with saved conversation history acknowledges that users have already adopted a different habit.
The rest of the update
Photos. The Clean Up tool is considerably more precise. Removing an unwanted object from a frame now generally leaves an image that looks as though the object was never there.
Visual Intelligence. Pointing the camera at a plate of food produces an assessment of the ingredients, the approximate energy content and how heavily processed the dish appears. The system does not give an exact calorie count, which avoids both accuracy disputes and the regulatory questions that attach to specific health claims.
Safari. Users can ask the browser to monitor a particular page and send a notification when it changes, such as a new post on a followed blog or a price change on a product listing.
Liquid Glass. Apple has added a control for the transparency of its glass effect, allowing users to make interfaces sharper or more frosted. It follows a year of complaints about legibility.
Installing the beta
The public beta requires registration in Apple’s beta software program. The option then appears in Settings, under Software Update.
Pre-release builds contain bugs and carry a risk of data loss, so a full backup beforehand is essential. Anyone who depends on their phone for work is better off waiting for the official release in the fall.
What to watch next
Two questions matter more than anything in the current build. The first is whether Google’s models are a temporary bridge or a long-term arrangement, and whether Apple intends to replace them with its own system later. The second is where the processing happens and how much of a Siri request leaves the device, given how much of Apple’s positioning rests on that answer.
Source: Fast Company
