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One of Siri's creators confirms what many thought was the reason it underperformed for years

One event has always been thought to have caused Siri to fail to live up to its expectations.

By Alan Friedman

Published: Sep 15, 2026, 3:35 AM

Apple

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This event caused Siri to underperform | Image by Apple

I've been using the beta version of iOS 27 since it was first released in June following the WWDC keynote. This means I have seen Siri AI improve over the months while Apple prepared for the release of the stable version of iOS 27 by improving Siri AI with each beta release.

Over a decade ago, Siri had plenty of unfulfilled promise

Apple still has some minor stuff to clean up with Siri AI in my opinion, but at this stage Apple has turned Siri into an extremely useful and powerful tool for answering questions. If you're a long-time PhoneArena reader, you probably recall those assistant battles when Siri would go up against Google Assistant, Cortana, and Alexa. In every test, Google Assistant would win proving itself to be the smartest of the assistants, and Siri would usually finish last.

Apple iPhone users would wonder how Apple lost the first-mover advantage. After all, Apple stunned the mobile tech world by introducing Siri when it unveiled the iPhone 4s with the digital assistant on October 4, 2011.

Younger iPhone users think that Siri has been on every iPhone model

For many younger iPhone users, Siri has always been an iPhone feature and they didn't know that Apple had actually purchased Siri for an estimated $200 million in April 2010. At that time, Siri was available from the App Store as a third-party app for the iPhone. Siri did more than just list an answer to a query; it was designed to connect to external APIs belonging to OpenTable, TaxiMagic, StubHub, MovieTickets.com, and Citysearch to book restaurant reservations, buy tickets to an event, or view movie times.

What caused Siri to underperform?

1 Votes

You would be able to type or say, "Find me a table for two at a romantic Italian restaurant nearby at 7 PM," and Siri would do all the grunt work and even make the reservation. Sounds like agentic AI, doesn't it?

Siri's creators wanted the app to be a "do-engine"

While Siri creators Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer wanted Siri to be a "do-engine" that could perform tasks, Apple stripped this away from Siri after the acquisition. It did so because some of the web APIs would stop working when an API changed or a website was updated. Companies also weren't keen about Apple taking a cut of their business without users opening the apps belonging to these businesses.

Siri AI responds to one of my queries. | Image by PhoneArena

Perhaps even more of a potential problem for Apple, allowing Siri to perform tasks would allow it to bypass Apple's app payment system, preventing the tech giant from collecting its "Apple Tax."

Steve Jobs' death was a major blow to the development of Siri at Apple

Ironically, as Siri AI makes its way across compatible iPhone units globally, it is getting closer to the original vision for Siri that creators Kittlaus and Cheyer had in mind when they first developed the app. For years, many inside Apple said that Siri started to lose focus after Steve Jobs passed away as the Apple co-founder had a specific future planned for Siri.

Speaking to CNN, Siri co-founder Kittlaus confirmed that Jobs had been working on integrating Siri into iOS when he passed. He also said that he quit Apple when Jobs died because inside Apple, only Jobs shared the same vision for Siri that Kittlaus did. Kittlaus also gave his explanation for why Apple fell behind Samsung and Google with its AI implementation. He said that Apple typically prioritizes its own products and probably missed out on the initial move into AI by the others.

"I think that’s just a function of how Apple generally operates, which is they’re super focused on the next product launches," Kittlaus said.

Siri AI is available for the following iPhone models:

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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