Apple’s WWDC AI demos looked more real after $250M false ad settlement

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[Image 3: Apple WWDC 2026 iOS 27 w=1024) **Image Credits:**Apple/screenshot Apps # Apple’s WWDC AI demos looked more real after $250M false ad settlement Julie Bort 3:39 PM PDT · June 8, 2026 The vibe of Apple’s 2026 WWDC event felt like a spouse proudly listing all the items on a honey-do-list they’d finally completed. Rather than showcase something exciting and new, Apple launched the keynote detailing fixes to last year’s “Liquid Glass” design; an overhaul of its awful search function; improvements to its Playground feature; and so on. Perhaps most importantly, two years after

promising but failing to launch a smarter Siri, Apple finally showed off an overhauled version of its AI-powered voice assistant. But the most telling detail wasn’t what Apple announced. It was how it chose to show some things off. Many of the Apple Intelligence demoes featured someone standing, phone in hand, pressing buttons or using voice commands in real time, while another camera showed off the phone’s response. These weren’t live onstage, anything-could-go wrong demos; they were pre-taped. But they looked far more like proof of working features than what Apple showed at WWDC 2024, when the company unveiled Apple Intelligence and a new Siri to the world through slickly produced videos that turned out to be more promise than

[Image 4: Apple WWDC 2026 iOS 27 w=680) Apple WWDC 2026 iOS 27 demo**Image Credits:**Apple/screenshot This demonstration style was noticed, with comments on X on Monday comparing today’s keynote to those 2024 so-called “vaporware” demos. Apple said at that time that the features would be available soon to those who upgraded to the iPhone 15 Pro and newer devices with M1 chips or better. But by March 2025, Apple admitted to Daring Fireball that rolling out the features shown via production video was “going to take us longer than we thought to ” Not long after, the Cupertino company faced a lawsuit in federal court alleging false advertising over the features shown at that 2024 event — a case that carried real reputational risk for a company whose brand has

long been built on the promise that its products just work. Last month, Apple agreed to pay a $250 million settlement on the suit, without admitting wrongdoing. Monday’s presentation appeared designed, at least in part, to avoid a repeat. There were still plenty of fully produced videos of features, like the one showing how to adjust Siri’s voice and another demonstrating improved voice-to-text transcription. But many of the AI features were shown in this “live-like” format, with someone using the feature on an actual device. The implicit message being that these features work on actual devices, and you will soon have

[Image 5: Apple WWDC 2026 iOS 27 w=680) Apple WWDC 2026 iOS 27 demo**Image Credits:**Apple/screenshot Apple also is not requiring users to buy the latest iPhone to get these features. The new Siri will be available through the new iOS 27 on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max and all iPhone 16 models and later, according to the company. The current model is the iPhone 17, meaning most users who upgraded in the past couple of years won’t need to buy new hardware to get access. It’s a concession, perhaps, that Apple won’t lock the features behind new devices to create upgrade pressure when it promised, two years ago, that such features would be available on iPhone 15.

Apple also said the new features will be available across its broader hardware lineup, including the iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad models with M1 or later, MacBook Neo (A18 Pro), Mac models with M1 or later, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch Series 10 or later, Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, and Apple Watch SE 3 when paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone nearby. ## Catch up on WWDC 2026 Everything announced, from start to finish Siri AI’s update, explained All the new AI features coming to Apple Photos Apple Intelligence’s updates coming this year Topics AI, apple intellignce, Apps, Gadgets, siri, TC, wwdc, WWDC 2026 _When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission.

This doesn’t affect our editorial [Image 6: Julie w=150) Julie Bort Venture Editor Julie Bort is the Startups/Venture Desk editor for TechCrunch. You can contact or verify outreach from Julie by emailing [redacted email] or via @Julie188 on X. View [Image 7: Event png) June 18 Los Angeles Get an inside look at what it takes to scale and succeed from leaders at Mach Industries, Founders Fund, and Shinkei Systems. Through candid fireside chats and high-impact networking, you’ll walk away with valuable insights and new connections. **REGISTER NOW** ## Most Popular * ### The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks * Zack Whittaker * ### Jeff Bezos’s Prometheus raises $12B to build an ‘artificial general engineer’ for the physical world * Marina Temkin * ### Cybersecurity researchers aren’t happy about the guardrails on Anthropic’s Fable * Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai * ###

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