First, I’d like to know what is the deal with Siri not being able to tell me the date without a network connection.

I’m pretty sure it can’t process voice commands on-device other than whichever ones you use to activate it. The thin client architecture was the only option for most of its existence and the only one that works for older devices, which they’ve actually been great about supporting since the battery-life processor throttling bs like a decade ago. It also makes sense that they wouldn’t constantly update their architecture. Now that they’re putting their money on on-device NN stuff I imagine that will change. But let’s be real: using a smartphone without a network connection is an edge case to begin with. On-device processing makes sense for a lot of reasons, but optimizing for smartphone users without data only makes sense if you’ve got a hiking map app or something.

Or providing info from 2016 when asked about US college sizes.