Apple's iOS 27.3 Lets Siri AI Act Across Third-Party Apps

Apple's iOS 27.3 update, rolling out on Tuesday, lets Siri AI perform actions across third-party apps. According to The Verge, the update ships as part of a Developer Preview, a pre-release programme for developers, and developers can now integrate Siri AI's new features in "all apps."

The most concrete developer-facing change is the new "app skill." Third-party developers can build app skills that chain several tasks into a single action, so a multi-step request can finish without the user tapping through each screen. Users will not have to name the app in a request while that app is in the foreground, during a Live Activity (a persistent status display, such as a delivery tracker on the Lock Screen), or in a conversation with Siri AI about the app. Siri AI works out the target from context instead.

Siri AI draws on the user's personal context, processes natural language prompts (ordinary spoken or typed requests rather than fixed commands), and uses on-screen awareness, meaning it can read what is currently displayed, to complete requests. Those three capabilities are the core of the update. Apple's developer materials describe the same combination across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro, and describe Siri as a personal assistant that helps people get information and perform quick actions throughout the system and the apps they use.

Apple is extending the expanded capabilities to its own apps: Calendar, Files, Finder, Journal, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Preview, Reminders, Safari, Shortcuts, and Weather. Users can ask Siri AI what it can do in each app. Apple had previously made a smaller set of Siri AI features available to third-party developers, so the current update widens an existing program rather than starting one.

For developers, the plumbing is documented in the WWDC26 sessions. Apple's guidance is to make content available in the Spotlight semantic index, a search layer that matches content by meaning rather than exact keywords, and to supply context for on-screen awareness so that Siri AI can find and act on app content. A separate session covers App Schemas, which Apple says enable semantic search, cross-app actions, contextual experiences, and content transfer for Siri. A further session covers advanced App Intents features (Apple's framework for exposing app actions to the system) for voice actions, Apple Intelligence content discovery, and on-screen awareness context. Teams that already expose App Intents will find the new surface an extension of that work rather than a separate integration.

The update arrives after a sequence of Siri AI announcements. In June, Apple described Siri AI as an entirely new version of Siri, deeply integrated into its platforms. In September, Apple said Apple Intelligence automatically proofreads text as users type across the system, including within most third-party apps. In October, Apple introduced HomeView, which lets users control a smart home by touch or by voice through Siri AI. Earlier, Apple had told developers that Siri would take hundreds of new actions across Apple and third-party apps.

Apple's plans for Siri have also reached beyond its own first-party apps. In March, Bloomberg reported, in a story carried by Reuters, that Apple planned to open Siri to rival AI services, with third-party AI apps integrating directly with Siri. The report said the move was expected as part of iOS 27. In May, Bloomberg reported that Apple planned to let users choose rival AI models across iOS and Apple Intelligence, alongside a revamped Siri with a standalone app. The iOS 27.3 update described above covers the app-action layer.

On the regional side, Apple has confirmed that an iOS 27.3 beta is coming next week with Apple Intelligence in China, according to 9to5Mac.

The broader context here is the shift in where an assistant's work happens. Earlier voice assistants mostly answered questions or launched an app. An assistant that reads on-screen state, carries personal context, and executes multi-step actions inside third-party software depends heavily on how well each app describes its content to the system index. Developers who treat semantic metadata and App Intents as an afterthought will likely see less of that capability working for them, while those who model their app's actions cleanly gain a single entry point for many tasks.

In my view, the more interesting question for developers is less whether Siri can reach their app and more which of their workflows they choose to package as app skills. Multi-step tasks such as booking, filing, or sending are where a combined action saves the user the most effort. For users, the practical gain is fewer taps across apps that have never talked to each other. Because this is a Developer Preview, the behaviour of these features will keep changing before general release, and the details that matter most to shipping software will be the ones developers can verify against the documentation and their own test builds.