That commitment is being put to the test.

as part of free software updates, Apple still hasn’t been able to soup up Siri in the ways that it touted at last year’s conference. The delays became so glaring that a chastened Apple retreated from promoting Siri in its AI marketing campaigns earlier this year.“It’s just taking a bit longer than we thought,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts last month when asked about the company’s headaches with Siri. “But we are making progress, and we’re extremely excited to get the more personal Siri features out there.”

While Apple has been struggling to make AI that meets its standards, the gap separating it from other tech powerhouses is widening. Google keeps packing more AI into its Pixel smartphone lineup whileinto its search engine to dramatically change the way it works. Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is alsothat will bring former Apple design guru Jony Ive into the fold to work on a new device expected to compete against the iPhone.

“While much of WWDC will be about what the next great thing is for the iPhone, the unspoken question is: What’s the next great thing after the iPhone?” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, another analyst for Forrester Research.Besides facing innovation challenges, Apple also faces regulatory threats that could siphon away billions of dollars in revenue that help finance its research and development. A federal judge is currently weighing whether proposed

in search should include a ban on long-running deals worth $20 billion annually to Apple while another federal judge

from collecting commission on in-app transactions processed outside its once-exclusive payment system.However, the arrangement between Talen and Amazon — called a “behind the meter” connection — has been held up by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the first such case to come before the agency.

It has raised questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid.For Big Tech, plugging energy-hungry data centers directly into a power plant can take years off their development timelines and is a much faster route to procuring power than having to connect to the congested electricity grid.

It’s not clear when FERC, which blocked the deal on a procedural grounds, will decide the matter, leaving in limbo regulatory treatment of the deal and others that likely would follow.Already in Pennsylvania, Microsoft announced a deal with the owner of the shuttered