In June 2024, Apple presented one of the most ambitious movements in its recent history: the integration of Apple Intelligence on your devices and, with it, a reinvention of Siri. That keynote promised something that many had been waiting for years: a truly useful assistant, capable of understanding the user contextoffer accurate answers and execute actions taking into account our personal information. Concert tickets, hotel reservations, links shared in Messages or calendar locations: everything would be within reach of the new Siri.
The enthusiasm was immediate. Apple presented it as an important transformation and, implicitly, as one of the necessary steps to catch up in the race for artificial intelligence (AI), accelerated after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. But the illusion soon evaporated. In March 2025, The company confirmed that the new version of Siri would not be available until 2026and when it did this 2026 we discovered that would not arrive in Europe yet. These two announcements came as a sudden stop. For many, it was not just a disappointment: It was a blow to the credibility that Apple had been cultivating for years. And, despite this, the company did not offer many explanations. The future was simply postponed.
We cannot deny that Apple knows how to manage the times. He masters like no one else the art of anticipating what is to come, even when what is apparently presented It’s not quite finished. John Gruber hinted at it.one of the most influential voices in the Apple environment, pointing out that some of the features presented at WWDC 2024 probably did not exist as such. Or, if they did, they were still far from being functional.
The secrets behind one of the most epic technology presentations in history
And it’s not the first time. In fact, this strategy has a clear precedent, perhaps the most revealing of all: the presentation of the first iPhone in 2007. An event that has become a myth in the history of technological marketing, with Steve Jobs announcing “a revolutionary and magical product.” But what few knew then, and many still ignore today, is that that device barely worked on the day of its debut. Literally.
A report from The New York Magazinebased on interviews with former Apple employees, reveals the ins and outs of that historic keynote. Among the testimonies, that of Andy Grignon, senior engineer responsible for the device’s communication modules, stands out. According to him, the iPhone software was plagued with bugs: songs played halfway, videos tended to freeze, and the system could collapse if the tasks were not executed in the precise order. Memory was so limited that just a few simultaneous operations were enough to cause a reboot.
Faced with such a scenario, engineers designed an emergency solution: “the golden path.” It was an exact sequence of actions that Jobs had to follow without deviating even a millimeter. Only then could they ensure that the phone did not stop responding during the demo. To cover his back, Jobs would have several identical units on stage. If one was blocked, it would move on to the next without the public noticing.
To this technical tension, they explain, was added the aesthetic demand. Jobs did not want a camera pointed at the device to show it on the screen. I wanted one direct projectionclean, without visual interference. To achieve this, engineers incorporated custom boards and video cables that extracted the signal from the iPhone itself and sent it to the projector. It was a fragile and artisanal system, but it did its job: it made everything seem natural, almost magical.
The WiFi was another headache. With thousands of people in the room, many with technical knowledge, connectivity could be compromised. To avoid this, Apple modified the AirPort software responsible for connecting the iPhone, adapting it to operate on frequencies reserved for Japan, outside the usual range in the United States. A risky trick, but effective to ensure a stable signal during the presentation.
The calls were also carefully prepared. AT&T, then exclusive partner of the iPhone, installed a portable mobile tower to ensure a stable signal. Even so, the demo devices were configured to always display five bars of coverage, regardless of the actual quality of the connection.
Against all odds, the presentation was impeccable. Jobs followed the script with surgical precision: he showed music and videos, browsed web pages, sent messages, made a call, explored photos with touch gestures and, in one of the most iconic moments, used Google Maps to locate a Starbucks and order, as a wink, 4,000 coffees. The public surrendered. No one could imagine that that highly advanced iPhone was, at least at that moment, a perfectly rehearsed staging.
The level of secrecy was such that, according to The New York Magazine, one of the engineers interviewed stated that some suppliers, such as Marvell Technologies, did not know until the day of the presentation that their WiFi and Bluetooth chips were being used in a mobile phone, and not in an iPod. Apple even designed false schemes to mislead and prevent leaks.
We may be, once again, facing one of those stagings that Apple dominates like no one else. The new Siri has already been presentedbut unlike what happened with the iPhone, we keep waiting to be able to use its most ambitious proposal in years. Siri aims to become a transformative tool, but we will have to wait to use it.
In Xataka | The new M3 Ultra marks a turning point: Apple will not create an Ultra version for each generation
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings