Mark Gurman: Apple's new Siri is finally good, a foldable iPhone is coming this fall, and 2027 will be Apple's biggest product year ever

Mark Gurman on Apple: New Siri, the Foldable iPhone, and 2027 as the Biggest Product Year in Apple's History

Apple's new Siri is finally functional. Mark Gurman calls it "really good" — a meaningful upgrade from what he describes as a system that was "way less than mediocre." The centerpiece of WWDC this year was personal context: asking Siri to pull calendar availability and draft an email, or grab a note and text it to someone. These are the same features Apple announced two years ago and then delayed, while publicly downplaying the slip. Gurman's read is the opposite of Apple's spin — these delayed features were the only ones that actually mattered.

Apple internally believes it is six months behind OpenAI. Gurman says the underlying models have improved significantly, and Image Playground is now competitive with Gemini and ChatGPT's image generation. The framing he uses: the pre-installed apps on a new iPhone aren't best-in-class, but they work. That's now true of Apple's AI stack for the first time.

The ChatGPT question

Gurman argues 95% of users won't need ChatGPT once the new Siri is on their phone. The use cases where Siri AI holds up — search, quick answers, edits, workflow — cover most of what casual AI users actually do. The gap is at the pro end: deep research, multi-document analysis, tax prep, health queries. His analogy is iMovie versus Final Cut Pro. Both have a market; they serve different needs.

The walled garden question is harder. For users outside Apple's ecosystem — Gmail, Google Calendar, Spotify — the experience will likely be weaker, and how much weaker depends on whether third-party developers build tightly against Apple's new Siri APIs. Gurman expects a slow burn, and notes that Google has little incentive to make its apps work better on iOS than on its own Pixel devices.

“Apple believes they're basically six months behind OpenAI and ChatGPT in terms of use cases... The first foldable phone — I'm calling it the iPhone Ultra — this fall. Twenty twenty seven is going to be Apple's biggest product year in its history: 20th anniversary iPhone, second foldable, iPhone Air two, complete redesign with curved glass.”

iPhone hardware roadmap

Gurman has published a second-generation iPhone Air planned for spring 2027. The first-generation's two main complaints — battery life and a single rear camera — are both being addressed. Battery gains are expected to come primarily from efficiency improvements in the A20 Pro chip built on a 2nm process, rather than a larger battery. A second rear ultra-wide camera is being added. At $999, Gurman thinks it will be a compelling offer.

The fall 2026 lineup includes the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, plus the first foldable iPhone. Gurman is calling it the iPhone Ultra, with a price above $2,000, though he flags the name isn't confirmed. Fall 2027 brings the iPhone 20 and iPhone 20 Pro Max — the twentieth anniversary models — with a complete redesign featuring curved glass, slimmer bezels, and a smaller Dynamic Island, plus a second foldable. iOS 27 includes a feature allowing a single phone number and carrier account to sync across two iPhones, which opens the door, at least technically, to a dual-device setup.

Gurman's summary: 2027 will be Apple's biggest product year in its history.

Vision Pro is on ice

Apple has shelved the Vision Pro line. What's coming instead is a ground-up redesign of a mixed reality headset — not a Vision Pro 2, but a start-from-scratch product. Gurman's timeline is late 2028 or 2029. An earlier cheaper "Vision Air" concept was killed.

Non-AR smart glasses — no display, camera-equipped, tied into Siri AI — are targeting the end of 2027, though Gurman notes they're running behind. True AR glasses from Apple are "much later in the decade."

A related product: new AirPods featuring external cameras for navigation and object identification, powered by cloud processing and Siri AI, are coming at the end of next year. The underlying technology is borrowed from Vision Pro's external camera feature introduced at this year's WWDC.

Smart home

The smart home display hub could launch as early as the end of 2026. Gurman expects it to be a significant seller — a counter or wall-mounted device with face recognition, personalized Siri, FaceTime, intercom, smart home control, and video. The robotic tabletop device (widely referred to as "the lamp") remains on track for 2028. It's Apple's first motorized product, and it's being led by Kevin Lynch, who previously ran Apple Watch software and then the Apple Car project before it was shut down.

On HomePod and the broader speaker opportunity, Gurman is blunt: Apple had a real shot and missed it — no app ecosystem, no Android support, no meaningful update to HomePod since 2018, and only a minor hardware refresh in 2023.

Parental controls

Screen Time, launched in 2018, has been "an unmitigated disaster" for years — buggy, unreliable, easily circumvented. The WWDC revamp was driven by a combination of regulatory pressure globally and a genuine product failure that needed fixing. The new approach allows an iPhone to be locked down to near-dumb-phone status and then unlocked incrementally over time — a feature Gurman expects competitors to copy.