Craig Federighi Explains Why Apple Pivoted to a Siri Chatbot App - MacRumors
Skip to Content
Craig Federighi Explains Why Apple Pivoted to a Siri Chatbot App
Wednesday June 10, 2026 5:07 am PDT by Hartley Charlton<br>Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi has explained why the company launched a standalone Siri app in iOS 27, after previously characterizing a dedicated chatbot as contrary to its Apple Intelligence strategy.
The new ‌Siri‌ app, announced at WWDC earlier this week, gives users a centralized place to manage and revisit their conversations with ‌Siri‌ AI. Federighi addressed the apparent about-face during a post-keynote discussion for the media at Apple Park this week, responding directly to a question about Apple's prior public stance.
Following WWDC 2025, Federighi and senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak went on a media tour in which they described Apple's approach as weaving ‌Siri‌ into the user's existing workflow rather than offering "a bolt-on chatbot on the side."
Federighi this week said the decision came down to a practical user need to return to and continue past ‌Siri‌ conversations. Apple determined that a home screen app was the most natural affordance on its platform for that purpose, and framed the ‌Siri‌ app as an extension of the system experience rather than a standalone product:
We see Siri not as a separate chatbot, just an unintegrated place you go and chit-chat, but rather as an integral, conversational tool that you use in the moment, deeply integrated into your experience.
Understanding what's on screen, able to interface, not in some separate world, but directly in the document that you're editing and that you want help proofreading, that you want tips on. And so all these experiences are conversational. They are really an extension of your system experience, deeply integrated into your flow.
Now, we did go back and forth on what's the best way, if you want to get back to such a chat that you had, because you want to continue it, you want to reference it, and quite honestly, in our platform, the most natural affordance for any user to go find something like that is to have an app that they can manage on their home screen, launch, and get back to. And so we have a Siri app, and that Siri app just re-embodies those capabilities of that core system experience.
The ‌iOS 27‌ developer beta is available now, though access to the new ‌Siri‌ requires joining a waitlist in Settings, with a public beta expected in July.
Tags: Craig Federighi, Siri Guide, Siri AI, Siri Chatbot Guide, WWDC 2026
[ 16 comments ]
Get weekly top MacRumors stories in your inbox.<br>Leave this field empty<br>Popular Stories
iOS 27 Getting Major Siri Redesign With Chat Interface and Dedicated App<br>Tuesday May 12, 2026 1:38 pm PDT by Juli Clover<br>Apple is introducing an overhauled version of Siri in iOS 27, evolving the personal assistant into a more capable chatbot and AI agent able to compete with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. With Siri's transition, Apple will be making multiple Siri-related design changes in iOS 27, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Siri will largely live in the Dynamic Island in iOS 27, but there will also be...<br>Read Full Article • 97 comments
OpenAI Considering Legal Action Against Apple Over 'Strained' Siri Partnership<br>Thursday May 14, 2026 10:52 am PDT by Joe Rossignol<br>OpenAI is preparing to potentially take legal action against Apple due to a "strained" relationship with the iPhone maker, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The two companies reached a partnership in 2024 that saw ChatGPT integrated into features like Siri and Image Playground across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. iPhone users can also subscribe to ChatGPT directly via the Settings app, with...<br>Read Full Article • 145 comments
iOS 27: Dedicated Siri App to Include Auto-Deleting Chats Feature<br>Monday May 18, 2026 4:00 am PDT by Tim Hardwick<br>Apple in iOS 27 will include an enhanced Siri with a dedicated app that gives users options to keep conversations in memory for a limited time, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says that Apple is keen to market its privacy credentials as a key advantage in the way it is implementing AI across its software compared to rivals....<br>Read Full Article • 39 comments
Top Rated Comments
kenny7<br>41 minutes ago at 05:35 am
Craig Federighi has been absolute failure when it comes to AI. He should not be in charge of Siri.<br>Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Astuces iOS<br>1 hour ago at 05:10 am
Pov : people still using Claude/Chatgpt/Gemini apps<br>Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ghostface147<br>1 hour ago at 05:10 am
Yeah because while AI does a lot, a good number of people use it as a chatbot only. I use AI as a chatbot to answer questions, not program code or do complex tasks. Once I get the Siri AI...