In his final earnings call as Apple CEO, Tim Cook said the company’s overhauled Siri AI assistant, now rolling out in the iOS 27 beta, may eventually offer paid usage tiers through existing iCloud+ subscriptions, similar to models used by Anthropic and OpenAI, though he stressed no final decisions have been made. Cook’s departure comes as incoming CEO John Ternus takes over a company that has lagged in AI development, having licensed Google’s Gemini technology to help power Siri and paid $250 million to settle a lawsuit over delayed AI features.
The revamped Siri, expected to reach the general public with iOS 27’s official release in September, now supports natural conversation, personal context awareness, cross-app task execution, and camera-based real-world queries, built using Apple’s own foundation models trained with the help of Google’s Gemini. Apple also raised prices on Macs and iPads amid an industry-wide RAM shortage affecting hardware costs broadly.
In other Apple news, the company is escalating its trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, seeking a preliminary injunction and expedited discovery from OpenAI, its foundation, device startup io, and named individuals including senior engineer Chang Liu and chief hardware officer Tang Yew Tan. Apple said its investigation has identified 11 additional former employees potentially connected to the alleged theft of proprietary information related to unannounced products, alleging some employees shared confidential materials or retained Apple devices after leaving. OpenAI publicly rejected the claims, stating it possesses no Apple trade secrets and accusing Apple of relying on inaccurate information, while noting Apple’s own acknowledged missteps during its outreach and internal security practices.
