The new Siri makes one of Apple's most convenient OS features a cumbersome mess
The Register
Apple's new AI-powered Siri buries Spotlight's simple web search under extra taps and Siri-first results. The Register's week-long test found it clunkier, not smarter, than the old system.
Based on reporting by The Register — read the original for the full story.
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Apple pitched the new Siri at WWDC as a leap forward for on-device AI, baked into iOS and macOS 27. After running the developer betas since June 8, The Register's hands-on take is blunter: the redesign mostly slaps an AI Overviews-style layer onto Spotlight, one of Apple's most beloved shortcuts, and makes it worse to use.
Some of the upgrade is genuinely good. Siri now handles multi-turn conversations instead of the old one-shot query-and-done routine, and on-device search works better, at least on an M1 MacBook (an iPhone 15 Pro was still stuck re-indexing a week later). The standalone Siri app logs every exchange for later review too, though that turns into clutter fast — even a quick weather check gets saved forever unless you dig into settings to delete it or set an auto-expiry that wipes useful chats along with the junk.
The real complaint is Spotlight. What used to be swipe, type, tap — instant Google search — now takes four or five steps: type the query, tap Show Results (hit enter instead and Siri hijacks the whole thing), tap Show More, scroll past Siri's own picks, then finally tap the actual search engine. Spotlight now assumes any non-file query means you want Siri's curated answers first, which feels a lot like Google's AI Overviews shoving real search results further down the page.
There's a reason for the resemblance. Apple swapped AI chief John Giannandrea for Amar Subramanya, a 16-year Google veteran who once ran Gemini engineering, now reporting to software chief Craig Federighi. Apple also confirmed at WWDC that its foundation models lean on a Google partnership, so the Google-flavored search instincts showing up in Siri aren't exactly a coincidence.
For now, the workaround is to skip Siri's takeover entirely: turn it off in Settings, or use Apple's new natural-language Shortcuts feature to build a one-tap Google search shortcut instead. It works fine and takes seconds to set up. Apple hasn't said whether the Spotlight overhaul is a beta hiccup or the plan, and didn't respond when asked. There's still time before the fall release for Apple to reconsider — assuming it wants to.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what happens when you hire Google's search people to fix Siri: you get Google's search problems. Burying a fast, reliable feature under an AI middleman nobody asked for isn't innovation, it's a UX regression dressed up as a keynote slide, and Apple should know better than to trade Spotlight's elegance for an unproven chatbot detour.
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