Some iPhone owners who have the iOS 18.1 beta installed appear to be experiencing issues with the Siri personal assistant, which has stopped working sometime over the course of the last couple of days.
There are multiple reports from people experiencing issues on social media, as noted by 9to5Mac, as well as complaints on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. Impacted users are seeing a "Siri Not Available" banner when attempting to use Siri.
The banner says that "Data for Siri is downloading" or that users need to "Connect to Wi-Fi to complete Siri download." Either way, no download completes as it seems to get stuck at 99 percent, and Siri remains unavailable.
Not all users who are running iOS 18.1 are impacted, and restarting does not fix the problem. Turning off Apple Intelligence allows the old version of Siri to work, but toggling it off and on again also does not address the issue.
It is not clear what happened with Siri, but it is worth noting that iOS 18.1 is a beta and there are often bugs in betas, which is why caution should be used when installing beta software. Apple will likely push out a fix for the problem in the near future.
For now, if you need Siri access and are running iOS 18.1, temporarily turn off Apple Intelligence.
Wednesday December 17, 2025 3:50 pm PST by Juli Clover
There's now a dedicated Apple Music app for ChatGPT, which allows ChatGPT to make music recommendations and build playlists.
Apple Music can be added to ChatGPT through the Settings section in the Mac app, website, or iOS app. Apple Music is listed under the apps option, and connecting to it requires signing in with your Apple Account for authorization purposes.
ChatGPT can be used to...
Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu.
As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Thursday December 18, 2025 3:44 pm PST by Juli Clover
Since the AirPods Pro 3 launched, there have been complaints from users who have noticed a static-like sound or a crackling issue when using the earbuds, particularly when Active Noise Cancellation is on but no media is playing. Users have also run into strange high-pitched whistling sounds that happen intermittently.
We shared the issues back in late October, and despite two subsequent...
You'd think things would be slowing down heading into the holidays, but this week saw a whirlwind of Apple leaks and rumors while Apple started its next cycle of betas following last week's release of iOS 26.2 and related updates.
This week also saw the release of a new Apple Music integration with ChatGPT, so read on below for all the details on this week's biggest stories!
Top Stories
i...
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Apple Maps no longer offers a Flyover feature that provides users with automated tours of notable landmarks in major cities. The Flyover option appears to have been nixed around when iOS 26 launched, but its removal went largely unnoticed.
Flyover city tours were introduced in 2014 with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, using Flyover imagery to generate an aerial tour. Most cities with Flyover...
Tuesday December 16, 2025 4:42 pm PST by Juli Clover
There has been a whirlwind of rumors over the last few days, sourced from leaked internal software designed for the iPhone and the Mac, and news sites like The Information. Below, we have a quick recap of everything we've heard this week, which serves as a guide to Apple's product plans in 2026 and beyond.
We've organized the info by likely release date, though there are some products that...
Wednesday December 17, 2025 10:06 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today provided beta testers with the first releases of upcoming iOS 26.3, iPadOS 26.3, tvOS 26.3, and watchOS 26.3 updates for testing purposes. The public betas come a couple of days after Apple provided the betas to developers.
Anyone can download and install public betas, and all that's required is to sign up on Apple's beta site. Once you've opted in, the software can be...
