Apple unveiled a dedicated Siri app at WWDC 2026, bundling the new chatbot‑style AI into a home‑screen icon for iOS 27. Senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi fielded media questions at Apple Park, explaining that the move reverses the company’s earlier stance against a separate chatbot. He said the app gives users a single place to launch, review, and continue past Siri conversations.
Federighi traced the decision to a practical need: users want to revisit prior chats without hunting through settings or voice history. Apple’s engineering team concluded that a home‑screen app offers the most natural affordance on the platform, positioning the Siri app as an extension of the core system rather than a bolt‑on. The design keeps Siri anchored to the document or screen the user is editing.
The iOS 27 developer beta is live, but access to the new Siri requires joining a waitlist in Settings, with a public beta slated for July. By framing the chatbot as a system‑integrated tool, Apple aims to differentiate its AI offering on privacy grounds while giving power users a tangible way to manage AI dialogs.
Source: MacRumors · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing