Apple shares jumped more than 4 percent last week. They hit a record high near $329. The catalyst? A public beta of iOS 27 that finally puts a transformed Siri into the hands of everyday users. Gene Munster noticed immediately. After one day with the software, the Deepwater Asset Management partner posted on X that the experience felt like “having a new phone.”
His words carried weight. Munster has tracked Apple for years. He has called the new assistant a potential driver of fresh revenue as soon as 2027. And he has repeatedly argued that Wall Street still underestimates what personalized AI on iPhones could mean. The beta release seems to hand him fresh evidence.
Yet the story is not one of instant triumph. Months earlier Munster himself had questioned whether Apple possessed the technical muscle to deliver on time. In June, right after the Worldwide Developers Conference, he wrote that the company “showed plans for a new Siri AI that consumers will love. They failed to answer the key question: Do they have the AI chops to deliver?” He pushed his own forecast from a fall 2026 launch to mid-2027. The gap between that caution and last week’s enthusiasm reveals how quickly sentiment can swing when code actually ships.
The new Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence, understands personal context in ways the old voice assistant never could. It pulls details from messages, photos, and apps to complete multi-step tasks. During the June presentation Apple demonstrated the assistant scanning an Instagram post, extracting a restaurant name, and plotting directions without extra prompts. That kind of fluid reasoning once lived only in competitor demos. Now it sits inside a public beta available to anyone willing to install iOS 27 early.
But not every device qualifies. The most advanced features require recent hardware packed with extra memory and the latest chips. Older iPhones receive only a subset of capabilities. Apple has drawn that line deliberately. The decision protects performance while it buys time to refine the underlying models. Still, it risks frustrating users who expected a universal upgrade.
Munster first laid out his bullish case months before the conference. In a May analysis he noted that the iPhone supercycle appeared to be ending. Growth forecasts for the next fiscal year had dropped to around 6 percent from an average near 20 percent. He asked whether Apple Intelligence, beginning with the new Siri, could generate additional sales and lift that number. “If Apple can show that personalized AI creates new use cases inside the iPhone, the current 6% growth expectation for next year will prove too low,” he wrote on his site, later republished by MacDailyNews.
He went further. Apple owns a rare combination of hardware control, software integration, custom silicon, strong privacy rules, and a massive installed base. Few rivals match that stack. The result, Munster argued, could be the first must-have consumer AI devices anchored in personal data rather than generic web knowledge. New features might spur upgrades. Developers could build novel apps. Future products such as smart glasses or input devices might follow. Each element points toward higher average selling prices and recurring services revenue.
Investors appeared to agree last week. Apple stock climbed while the Nasdaq rose only modestly. Ming-Chi Kuo, a respected supply-chain analyst, told followers the move matched his earlier call for a positive trend in the second half of the year as long as the core narrative held. “I rarely make public calls on stock price trends,” Kuo wrote on X, according to a Benzinga report. The rally pushed shares to an intraday high of $328.73.
The market reaction echoed a moment Munster highlighted from the prior year. He compared the current setup to Google’s sharp upward rerating in April 2025 after its own AI progress became tangible. “The new Siri AI in iOS 27 public beta released yesterday gives investors concrete evidence that Apple finally has the AI chops it’s long been missing,” he posted. The parallel suggests he now believes the delivery question has been answered in the affirmative.
Public reaction on X remains divided. Some users still complain that the old Siri struggled with basic commands. Others report the beta version already handles complex requests better than expected. One thread noted that younger consumers rely on the assistant more frequently than older ones, hinting at generational shifts in adoption. And a few pointed out that alternatives such as Grok or ChatGPT feel faster for certain web-oriented queries. Those comparisons matter. Apple must prove its on-device approach delivers enough privacy and speed advantages to win daily use.
Apple’s own communications strike a measured tone. The company describes Siri AI as “an even more capable AI assistant with expanded intelligence to be more helpful every day.” It promises the full English-language version later this year, with additional languages to follow quickly. Developer betas opened in June. The public beta arrived in mid-July, according to TechCrunch. A formal release is scheduled for this fall alongside iOS 27.
That schedule aligns with Munster’s revised timeline for the “real version.” He had expected a polished product by September. The beta label and delayed consumer rollout forced him to extend the horizon. Yet the early hands-on feedback appears to have restored his confidence. One day of testing converted skepticism into a bold endorsement. Such rapid shifts are rare in analyst commentary. They underscore how much the actual software performance, rather than slide-deck promises, now drives perception.
Wall Street’s attention has turned to 2027. Can the new assistant spark enough excitement to accelerate iPhone replacement cycles? Will developers create apps that take advantage of Siri’s deeper system access and thereby create services revenue? Munster believes both outcomes are possible. He sees personalized AI as an underappreciated opportunity precisely because Apple can keep data on device. Privacy becomes a feature, not a constraint.
Of course risks remain. Training large models at scale still demands massive compute. Apple has partnered with external providers for some cloud tasks while keeping core functions local. Integration bugs could surface as millions of users test the beta. And competitors continue to advance. OpenAI, Google, and others ship frequent updates that raise the bar for what counts as intelligent.
Even so, the recent stock move suggests many investors have started to price in success. The 4 percent gain on beta day exceeded the broader market by a wide margin. It also erased some of the post-WWDC disappointment that had shaved roughly 4 percent from the shares in June. Volatility around product events is nothing new for Apple. The difference this time is that tangible software, not vaporware, sits at the center of debate.
Munster’s May note had warned that the June quarter might mark the end of easy supercycle comparisons. Guidance for that period beat expectations, yet the stock rose only 4 percent instead of the 10 percent he thought justified. The market had already begun to look past near-term results toward AI. Last week’s beta appears to have validated that forward gaze.
Look closer at the hardware requirements and the picture clarifies further. Advanced Siri features demand the neural engines found in iPhone 16 and later models or equivalent chips in iPads and Macs. That limitation could encourage upgrades among users who skipped the last cycle. If the assistant proves as useful as early testers claim, the incentive grows. Munster has argued this exact dynamic could lift growth above consensus forecasts.
Apple’s long product cycles have sometimes masked underlying innovation. The company famously arrives late to certain markets yet often refines the concept until it feels inevitable. Munster referenced that pattern in June when he called 2026 the most important WWDC in 43 years. The new Siri represents the payoff. Whether it fully arrives in 2026 or slips into 2027 now seems less critical than the quality of what ships.
Users testing the beta report faster responses on device. They note improved handling of follow-up questions within the same conversation. Some describe the assistant as finally useful for daily planning rather than just setting timers. Those anecdotes, while early, echo Munster’s “new phone” reaction. They suggest the software crosses a threshold from novelty to necessity.
The coming months will test that impression at scale. Millions of public-beta participants will stress the system. Feedback will flow back to Apple engineers. Refinements will appear in subsequent updates. By the time the stable release lands this fall, the feature set could feel even more polished.
Munster has maintained his optimism across fluctuating headlines. From his early 2026 predictions that Apple would launch a well-received Siri before April, through post-WWDC caution, to last week’s celebration, the through-line remains belief in the company’s ability to integrate AI into consumer hardware better than anyone else. The latest beta seems to confirm that view. The stock market has taken notice. Now the burden shifts to execution at volume.
Plenty of questions persist. How quickly will adoption spread beyond enthusiasts? Will enterprises find value in the privacy-focused design? Can Apple turn the assistant into a platform that supports new subscription offerings? Munster’s writings suggest affirmative answers on each count. His track record gives those forecasts credibility. Yet only real-world usage over the next year will settle the debate.
For now the narrative has flipped from doubt about AI chops to celebration of a breakthrough moment. Apple stock sits near all-time highs. Analysts who once worried about delayed timelines now highlight upside. And one of the most consistent voices on the topic says the device in his pocket already feels reborn. That combination of technical progress, market reaction, and renewed analyst conviction paints a brighter picture for Apple’s AI future than seemed possible just weeks ago.
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