Apple Wants You to Move Into Siri's New House. Read the Lease First.

I once had a landlord who offered me a beautiful apartment. Hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, a balcony overlooking the river. The first three months were free. “Just move in,” he said, grinning like a man who’d definitely read his own contract. “We’ll figure out the rent later.”

I asked what “later” meant. He said he hadn’t decided yet, but he definitely hadn’t ruled out raising it. A lot.

I took the apartment. Because sometimes the view is worth the risk. But I kept my old lease active — just in case.

That’s the exact situation iOS developers are in right now with Siri.

Siri Isn’t an Assistant Anymore. It’s an App.

Let’s talk about what just leaked. On May 12, reports from MacRumors confirmed what the rumor mill had been whispering for months: iOS 27 is turning Siri into a full-blown chat application.

Not a voice assistant. Not a glorified timer-setter. A chat app. With:

A dedicated Siri app on your home screen, complete with conversation history
A chat interface that looks like iMessage — you can type or talk
Document and image uploads — drag a PDF into Siri and ask questions about it
Dynamic Island integration — a “Search or Ask” prompt with a glowing cursor
A new system-wide gesture — swipe down from the top center to invoke Siri, replacing (or augmenting) Spotlight

This isn’t an upgrade. This is Siri applying for a completely different job. Apple looked at ChatGPT, looked at Siri, and apparently said: “What if Siri was… that? But also the entire OS search layer?”

For users, this is exciting. For developers, this is the beginning of a conversation that Apple doesn’t want to have too loudly.

The Pitch: “Build Here. Your Users Are Already Inside.”

Apple’s message to developers is clear and, honestly, compelling. With App Intents, your app can surface actions directly inside Siri. A user doesn’t need to open your app. They just ask, and Siri handles the rest.

“Hey Siri, log my coffee in BrewLog.” “Hey Siri, start a 25-minute focus timer in ThinkBud.” “Hey Siri, show me my resume score in ApplyIQ.”

The integration is elegant. The discoverability potential is massive. If Siri becomes the front door of iOS — and with iOS 27, it absolutely will — then App Intents become the difference between your app being a resident of the building and your app being the guy standing outside in the rain.

We wrote about this two weeks ago: App Intents are the new SEO. And with the new Extensions framework letting users swap between Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT as Siri’s brain, the surface area for app integration just got wider.

Apple is building the most powerful AI assistant layer in mobile. And they want your app inside it.

So what’s the problem?

The Catch: “We Won’t Charge You. Yet.”

Here’s where the lease gets interesting.

According to a 9to5Mac report from May 13, Apple has been actively courting developers — particularly in China — to integrate their apps with the new Siri. Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent. The big players.

And some of them are saying: not yet.

The reason? Apple told developers it won’t charge a commission on Siri-driven interactions in the early stages of the partnership. But it explicitly hasn’t ruled out introducing one later.

Read that again. Apple didn’t say “we’ll never charge you.” They said “we haven’t decided to charge you yet.”

If you’ve been in the Apple ecosystem long enough, you’ve seen this movie before. The plot goes like this:

Apple builds a new platform feature
Apple invites developers to build on it for free
Developers invest engineering time, redesign workflows, and build integrations
Adoption grows
Apple introduces a commission

The App Store started with a generous 70/30 split that seemed revolutionary compared to retail. Then came the small business program. Then came the lawsuits. Then came the DMA compliance fees in Europe that somehow cost more than the original 30%.

Search Ads? Optional at first. Now they’re practically mandatory for discoverability.

MFi (Made for iPhone)? Started as a quality program. Became a licensing fee that added cost to every third-party accessory.

This isn’t conspiracy thinking. It’s pattern recognition.

The Developer’s Dilemma: Build Now or Wait?

So you’re an iOS developer in May 2026. WWDC is 25 days away. You know Siri is becoming the central nervous system of iOS. You know App Intents are the integration mechanism. You know users will expect your app to work with Siri’s new chat interface.

But you also know that every hour you spend on Siri integration is an hour you’re investing in a platform whose terms aren’t final.

Here’s my take: you should still build for Siri. But build smart.

Do this:

Implement App Intents now. Even if Apple introduces a commission later, App Intents are a net positive. They make your app more discoverable, more useful, and more integrated. The engineering investment pays off regardless.
Keep your app’s core experience independent. Siri integration should be an extension of your app, not a replacement for it. If users can do everything through Siri without ever opening your app, you’ve built Apple a feature and yourself a dependency.
Design for graceful degradation. If Siri’s terms change, you should be able to dial back integration without breaking your user experience. Think of Siri like a distribution channel, not your product.
Watch WWDC like a hawk. The Extensions API documentation drops with the first developer beta. Read the terms. Read the fine print. Read the fine print of the fine print.

Don’t do this:

Don’t build your entire business model around Siri-driven transactions without understanding the fee structure.
Don’t assume “free now” means “free forever.” Apple’s track record says otherwise.
Don’t panic and skip integration entirely. The developers who are invisible to Siri in 2027 will wish they’d started in 2026.

The Bigger Picture: Platform Gravity

There’s a larger story here that goes beyond commissions. Siri 2.0 isn’t just a feature — it’s a platform within the platform.

When Siri can browse the web, read your documents, execute cross-app actions, and maintain conversation history, it starts to look less like an assistant and more like an operating system layer that sits above your app. Your app becomes a service provider to Siri, not the other way around.

This is the same pattern we’ve seen with Apple opening Siri to third-party AI models. Apple doesn’t need to build the best AI. They just need to control the layer that sits between users and AI. They become the landlord of the AI experience on iOS.

For developers, the strategic question isn’t “should I integrate with Siri?” It’s “how do I integrate with Siri without losing control of my relationship with my users?”

The answer: invest in your app’s unique value. The things Siri can’t replicate. The design. The experience. The depth. Build the integrations, but make sure your app still has a reason to be opened.

If you’re looking to deepen your SwiftUI fundamentals while all of this plays out, our SwiftUI courses cover everything from foundations through production-scale architecture — including App Intents, which are about to become the most important framework you haven’t adopted yet.

The Bottom Line

Siri 2.0 is real. It’s launching in September. And it’s going to reshape how users interact with every app on their phone.

Apple is offering you a beautiful apartment in their new building. The view is incredible. The location is unbeatable. The first few months might even be free.

Just don’t throw away your old lease.