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Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#161

Post by achierius »

mulletbum wrote: post #158
JimDabell wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple have never learnt how to build software sustainably. They let the bugs, misfeatures, and tech debt pile up over time. They addressed this once with a huge “0 new features” iteration with Snow Leopard to catch up on the worst of it, but never resolved the root of the problem, so it started to build up again. Now it seems like they don’t care enough about software quality to even do that. They need somebody else…

They aren't even doing hardware well in some cases, their bread and butter. Bluetooth has been broken on both editions of their Pro Max Phone (15 & 16). It cuts out and has all kinds of weird issues, but no fix has come for years now. This was why I always paid a premium for their phones, they did hardware and software well. Not anymore, their so focus has been on their processors.

What makes you think that's not a software problem too?

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#162

Post by pzo »

microtherion wrote: post #65
visarga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's TTS voices still run on 10 year old technology. Pretty disappointing, at one time the had the best system voices.

Having worked on Apple's TTS for more than a decade, I can state with confidence that this is utter bullshit and you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Both in terms of quality, and of the underlying technology used, Apple's current TTS is in no way comparable to what existed 10 years ago (at Apple, or anywhere else in the industry). I challenge you to find a 2014 recording that is on par with…

I have been playing recently with those enhanced TTS model and they are of similar quality like piper TTS models to me - not that good. StyleTTS 2 like kokoro sounds so much better for me and also run realtime on their devices. And when you compare their online models to not even what OpenAI have but some small recent startups like Sesame or open source models like Orpheus, Apple TTS sounds (pun intended) really behind.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#163

Post by tannhaeuser »

I'd be glad if Apple could concentrate on a number of less prestigious not-quite-AI issues such as their text input, selection, and mixed-language spellcheck handling in iOS (easier to retype things most of the time, undesired pasting of styled text in recent Safari making pasted text invisible in dark mode) and window focus management (bring to top random windows after closing a window) on macOS.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#164

Post by alexpotato »

I've heard this story about Steve Jobs and both his communication style and attention to detail (it may be apocryphal):

"Steve was in a meeting with several senior engineers at Apple and asked:

'Can we make the phone smaller?'

The engineers responded 'No, it's as small as we can make it'

Steve then picked up the phone and threw it into a fish tank.

As everyone watched the phone sink into the tank, Steve turned and said 'I see air bubbles coming out of the phone. That would lead me to believe there is still unused space in the phone!' "

I wonder if anyone at Apple these days has that intersection of:

- attention to small details

- able to communicate which details are the most important

- has the sway to be able to do the above an make changes

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#165

Post by samtheprogram »

rchaud wrote: post #120
windward wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user it feels disrespectful to be so overtly treated as an untapped revenue stream for a premium-price product. It's Samsung-esque.

None of my Samsung phones have ever advertised anything to me. Unlike iOS,there are any number of music player apps on Android that stay out of the way and don't try to be a "platform".

> None of my Samsung phones have ever advertised anything to me.

I had a Galaxy S8. It definitely did.

> Unlike iOS,there are any number of music player apps on Android that stay out of the way and don't try to be a "platform".

iOS has other music players too. It was a choice that e.g. doubleTwist stopped supporting iOS when pivoting to CloudPlayer.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#166

Post by behnamoh »

AnonC wrote: post #55

IMO, Craig Federighi is quite good at presentations and his own style of humor, but he doesn’t seem to have a good grip on the quality of software across all of Apple’s (buggy) platforms and apps. I don’t believe that moving Siri under him (i.e., his reporting structure) is a good idea. Only time will tell. There are far more bugs and issues that are to be fixed (but don’t get attention) than Siri. Anyway Siri has be…

> It’s not a big deal if it remains so for another half a decade. Nobody outside of Apple has any expectations on it.

But when Apple advertises literally all their new devices as "Built for Apple Intelligence" without actually delivering on that promise, that's just false advertising.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#167

Post by samtheprogram »

diggan wrote: post #80
AnonC wrote: post #55

IMO, Craig Federighi is quite good at presentations and his own style of humor, but he doesn’t seem to have a good grip on the quality of software across all of Apple’s (buggy) platforms and apps. I don’t believe that moving Siri under him (i.e., his reporting structure) is a good idea. Only time will tell. There are far more bugs and issues that are to be fixed (but don’t get attention) than Siri. Anyway Siri has be…

> Nobody outside of Apple has any expectations on it. Well, apparently some people have at least some expectations, after Apple pushed ads touting Siri's new abilities (and Apple AI) but failed to launch them on time, and now Apple been hit with a federal lawsuit against them: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/20/apple-suit-false-advertisin...

I’m one of them. I saw demos at _last year’s_ WWDC that I’ve been excited to get. And now with this announcement I don’t think that will happen before this year’s event.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#168

Post by easton »

kotaKat wrote: post #121
smcleod wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri's voice recognition has gone down a lot over the last 5 years actually, it used to be far more accurate, its speech has certainly improved to be more natural sounding. Its capabilities though... yikes

They spent more time polishing voices than they did on actual features, if anything, regressing them to the stone ages in terms of its primitive form. Plus, there’s no more humor. Trying to crack jokes at it used to give funny responses. Even old things like “I need to hide a body” — “I don’t know how to respond to that”. Insult it and it’s a “I won’t respond to that”. Lots of old funnies are now gone and stripped aw…

I was mad that easter egg was gone, but I just tried "I need to hide a body" and Siri disabled location sharing on Find My.

which is equally funny I think

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#169

Post by acdha »

I have to say that while I’d somewhat like to have a better Siri, it’d make more of a difference in my daily life if they would put those engineers on fixing text input so I didn’t have to change “snd” to “and” dozens of times a day or deal with bizarre and ungrammatical suggestions.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#170

Post by layer8 »

alexpotato wrote: post #164

I've heard this story about Steve Jobs and both his communication style and attention to detail (it may be apocryphal): "Steve was in a meeting with several senior engineers at Apple and asked: 'Can we make the phone smaller?' The engineers responded 'No, it's as small as we can make it' Steve then picked up the phone and threw it into a fish tank. As everyone watched the phone sink into the tank, Steve turned and sa…

What’s most improbable about this anecdote is there happening to be an open fish tank in the meeting room. ;)
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