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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

#341

Post by runjake »

tehlike wrote: post #210
ddp26 wrote: post #180

John Giannandrea (JG) was running the Google Assistant when I was there. That didn't go so well. (Pre-LLM assistants as a category have done badly - Alexa/Siri did _ok_ but presumably everyone working on them had higher hopes.) I remember being surprised when JG seemingly "failed up" to become head of Apple AI. It's been many years and it's hard to point to anything that's gone well in that category. Seems like there…

Failing up is surprisingly common

The key ingredients here appear to be audacity and persistence, with competence taking somewhat of a backseat.

This isn't intended to be overly critical. It aligns with the old adage, "If you want it, ask for it."

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

#343

Post by square_usual »

walterbell wrote: post #296
dmix wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there was no competition. Alexa similarly gave up trying to improve theirs after it launched. I've never tried Google's voice assistant but I assume it wasn't very interesting before GPT either. I'm not convinced it was a technical limitation, even stuff like voice parsing was not improved or basic functionality expanded horizontally.

Alexa sold 500 million devices. Before layoffs, they had 10K staff doing something. Their LLM product recently launched and is rolling out soon, lead by former head of MS Surface.

They sold 500 million really cheap speakers. The voice assistant is mostly doing the same thing Siri does, i.e. set timers.

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

#344

Post by tedd4u »

heed wrote: post #327
ksec wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of examples. The problem isn't JG. It is Tim Cook. He is exceptionally poor at judging character. And I have been saying this for 10+ years. John Browett, CEO of Dixons. Anyone from UK have said WTF at the time. Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, the two together Apple has literally stopped expanding their Retail store despite having 10x as much customers. Rolled out many "changes" to Apple store when nearly ev…

Eddy Cue owns Maps too

Maps is my default now, it’s improved so much relative to Google Maps. (At least in my area)

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

#345

Post by [deleted] »

shmatt wrote: post #249
SirMaster wrote: post #218

Do people actually want this AI stuff in their phone? I don't want AI on my desktop/laptop computer and I don't want it on my phone either. None of my family or friends that I talk to seem to want it either.

Regardless, I can imagine how rage inducing it is for the Apple CEO to use Siri, then immediately after use ChatGPT Advanced Voice mode. Its like what Siri should be, regardless if this much or that much people will use it. If Apple made a voice mode as advance as ChatGPT, and no one used it, then you can throw away Siri all together (and i'd assume Apple has the data that shows people actually use the Siri)

[deleted]

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

#346

Post by [deleted] »

subsubzero wrote: post #294
ksec wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of examples. The problem isn't JG. It is Tim Cook. He is exceptionally poor at judging character. And I have been saying this for 10+ years. John Browett, CEO of Dixons. Anyone from UK have said WTF at the time. Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, the two together Apple has literally stopped expanding their Retail store despite having 10x as much customers. Rolled out many "changes" to Apple store when nearly ev…

This is a fantastic comment, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment on Angela Ahrendts. What was once a magical experience going to a apple store has devolved into a nightmare. A few reasons why: - The complete removal of spontaneity of the shopping experience. You wander over to look at a laptop and decide you want to buy it. Asking a employee is disagreeable as most have a ear bud in their ear receiving instru…

[deleted]

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

#347

Post by kthomson »

rchaud wrote: post #306
freeamz wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if he did it, but from what I heard from friends who worked with him, wouldn't be surprised if he did. Really love the guy as someone who combined creativity and tech, but these kind of things is one of least things I liked about him. It is one these Trumpisuqe quality playing hard ball, etc. Very US business like tend to be very off putting.

The Isaacson biography has a section where Jobs speaks to the CEO of Corning (glass screen vendor, CEO was a materials engineer) with absolute Trumpian ignorance ("You don't know what you're doing!"). Corning wanted the business and thus had to coddle him like a baby to get him to see reality. It's tragic that so many business leaders in the US see this kind of bloviating as something to emulate. Reminds me of Altman…

Except this led to Corning repurposing a Kentucky plant and ramping manufacturing to meet the original iPhone launch. And Weeks (Corning CEO) has publicly praised Steve for helping him better assess risk as a leader.

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

#348

Post by mckn1ght »

dylan604 wrote: post #243
SirMaster wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure yeah a local LLM app would be nice. But yeah I don't need or want it all integrated into the OS either.

But how can you find out what time your mom texted you to meet? Surely, you don't mean open the text app, find the thread with your mom, and then scroll looking for it. Do you? Surely, the world couldn't function like that. We'd be staring at our screens all day doom scrolling in various apps looking for whatever info you needed. That's just not how the world works.

I think it is actually, because as everything transitions to apps and websites and smartphone, lately I feel like my phone is simply another organ located in my hands and I have to spend an unreasonable amount of time looking at it to get things done. I’d love to have something like Apple Glass powered by AI so I can get both hands freed up again.

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

#349

Post by PaulHoule »

The trouble here is that generative AI is at a lower level of development as opposed to semiconductor design. Apple can build an internal talent pool to make the M1, M2, M3, etc. and produce an industry leading product but in A.I. the field is so rapidly changing that no company can dominate. Every moment is a “DeepSeek moment” in that smaller organizations are making tiny, small, medium and occasionally large advances and if you draw a line at time t where you pick the SOTA and build a proprietary system based on that you will be obsolete in a few months.

It’s kryptonite for Apple but I can’t believe anybody thought Apple Intelligence was more than hype.

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

#350

Post by ein0p »

ed_mercer wrote: post #108
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…

Literally the only time I ever use Siri is to set a timer. That is, if I’m lucky and she actually understands me. It’s such an embarrassment in 2025.

Especially embarrassing when OpenAI's Advanced Voice can easily understand mixed-language contemporary slang on arbitrary topics, and even convincingly simulate it in the output. It can also do this at any volume, with "uhs" and "ahs", interruptions, corrections, and ignoring the accent.
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