Apple Intelligence Siri Extensions Already Built, Delayed For Later Release

Apple held back three features from its WWDC announcement that are already running on employee devices, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Each is expected to arrive publicly at a later date, suggesting the omissions were deliberate rather than a sign the features weren’t ready.

The least surprising holdback is a new Modular watch face for Apple Watch, which Gurman had flagged before the event. His earlier reporting described a simplified take on the Modular Ultra design currently exclusive to the Apple Watch Ultra. Apple appears to be saving it for the fall hardware announcement alongside new Apple Watch models.

The customizable Camera app is a more pointed delay. Gurman first reported the feature in May, describing a layout where users rearrange controls like flash, exposure, timer, depth of field, and resolution as widgets along the top of the interface. Apple is reportedly holding it specifically for the iPhone 18 Pro, which is expected to carry the most significant camera hardware upgrade in several years.

The Siri Extensions Question

The most revealing omission is Extensions, a framework for letting third-party AI chatbots integrate with Siri, Apple Intelligence, and tools like Writing Tools and Image Playground. The infrastructure is already visible in the first iOS 27 developer beta, with a settings panel and an App Store section built and waiting. Apple has reportedly already held discussions with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, including details about an entitlement those companies would need to apply for. Anyone running the beta can already see a chatbot picker inside Siri’s settings, though the list currently stops at ChatGPT.

Gurman offers four theories for why Extensions stayed off the WWDC stage: it could undermine Apple’s position with EU regulators, it might have overshadowed Apple’s own rebuilt Siri experience, it risked litigation from OpenAI over losing exclusivity, and it would have complicated messaging around Apple’s simultaneous use of Google’s AI models. That’s a lot of reasons to stay quiet about a feature that, by Gurman’s account, has been in active internal use for months.

The Extensions framework also connects directly to how App Intents and SiriKit are evolving as Apple opens more of its AI layer to outside developers, even if that opening isn’t being announced on a keynote stage.