Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter of 4 October that Apple’s upgraded Siri AI is unlikely to reach iPhone and iPad users in the European Union for at least five months. He calls that the “absolute best-case scenario” and warns the wait could run longer while Apple works through its compliance with the bloc’s digital rules.
The gap is specific to Apple’s mobile devices. EU users can already use Siri AI on the Mac, but not on iPhone or iPad. That split tracks the Digital Markets Act: iOS and iPadOS are designated as gatekeeper platforms under the law, while macOS is not.
A familiar pattern
Europe has been here before. When Apple announced Apple Intelligence in June 2024, it said some features would not launch in the EU that year because of the interoperability requirements in the DMA. Apple Intelligence reached Macs in the region first, and only arrived on iPhone and iPad in the EU with iOS 18.4 at the end of March 2025.
Gurman’s reading is that the latest hold-up may not be purely technical. He suggests Apple could be withholding the upgrade on purpose to put pressure on the European Commission, betting that frustrated customers will push Brussels to soften its approach. That is his interpretation rather than anything Apple has said, and Apple has not announced an EU timeline for Siri AI on iPhone or iPad.
Either way, the practical result is the same for now: EU owners who want the new Siri on Apple hardware will have to use a Mac. The delay also keeps Siri AI at the centre of the wider question of how much Apple’s assistant can be trusted to do, which we looked at in our analysis of Private Cloud Compute and Siri AI.