In the weeks before new hardware arrives, Apple has chosen to lead with intelligence — releasing iOS 27 and a substantially reimagined Siri to the full breadth of its installed base before a single iPhone 18 is sold. The move signals something larger than a product update: it is a declaration that the era of the voice assistant as a peripheral feature is ending, and that AI is being repositioned as the animating center of the Apple experience. Where Siri once lagged quietly behind its rivals, Apple now appears willing to rebuild from the architecture outward, staking its next chapter on the qu