Apple TV and HomePod mini Delayed Two Years for Working Siri

The most underreported detail in Apple’s second-half lineup is not the foldable iPhone or the new Macs. It’s that a significant chunk of these products were reportedly held back waiting for a more capable Siri, which only arrived in beta form at WWDC 2025, two years after Apple first teased advanced Siri features at WWDC 2024. That delay has a cascading effect on everything from the Apple TV to the HomePod mini.

The Apple TV and HomePod mini are the clearest examples of products sitting on finished hardware while software caught up. Both are now expected with Wi-Fi 7, newer chips, and support for the revamped Siri, but the timing suggests Apple was unwilling to ship them until the assistant they’re built around actually worked as advertised.

The foldable iPhone Ultra is the headline product, featuring a 7.7-inch inner display, Touch ID instead of Face ID, and iOS 27 built around split-screen multitasking. It arrives alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, which brings variable aperture, a smaller Dynamic Island, and Apple’s first C2 modem with satellite 5G browsing.

Home Hardware

The smart home hub is a genuinely new product category for Apple: a 6 to 7-inch square display with an A18 chip, FaceTime, and wall or table mounting. Potential accessories include a Face ID doorbell and a security camera, which would give Apple a more complete home ecosystem play against Amazon and Google.

On the Mac side, the picture is murkier. The Mac Studio, Mac mini, and the redesigned MacBook Ultra (expected with an OLED display, touchscreen, and Dynamic Island) could all slip to 2027 due to a reported RAM chip shortage. Apple has navigated supply constraints before, but a simultaneous delay across three product lines would be unusual.

The iPad mini update stands out quietly in the list: OLED display, A19 Pro or A20 Pro chip, vibration-based speakers, and water resistance. For a device that hasn’t seen a major redesign in years, that’s a substantial jump.