Apple's New Siri Can Finally Read Your Old Emails and Texts

Apple released its big yearly software updates today for the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro and Apple TV. The headliner is Siri AI, a complete rebuild of Apple's voice assistant using the same kind of technology behind ChatGPT. Apple is calling it a free update: you download it, and your device suddenly gets noticeably smarter. It's available for supported devices starting today, with no subscription required.

So what can it actually do? Ask Siri in ordinary speech to find something buried in your old emails or text messages, and it will dig it up. Ask it to explain what's on your screen. If an app's developer added support, Siri can reach inside that app and do things for you — the kind of task automation that used to require fiddly setup. There's also a standalone Siri app, much like how ChatGPT or Claude work. Apple says most requests are handled on your device, with more powerful servers taking on tougher jobs.

Here's the catch. Siri AI only runs on recent hardware: an iPhone 15 Pro, an iPhone 16 or newer, or a Mac with Apple's own M-series chips. If your phone is older, you get the update but not the headline feature. Mac users face a separate deadline: this is the last macOS version to support Rosetta, a tool that lets new Macs run older software built for Intel machines. After this, many aging apps will stop working — though Apple carved out an exception for older games.

Smaller changes round things out. Apple added a slider controlling how see-through its "Liquid Glass" design looks, addressing months of user complaints. The Apple Watch gains menopause and perimenopause tracking but loses the little-used Walkie Talkie feature. Apple TV gets no Siri AI at all. And the Vision Pro headset gets a new virtual landscape to explore.