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Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

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Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#31

Post by hackingonempty »

al_borland wrote: post #25
dabinat wrote: post #14

I feel like the difference between Steve Jobs’ and Tim Cook’s leadership styles is that Cook is really good at optimizing existing processes, but does not have the vision to capitalize on what’s next. Apple got into the smartphone game at the right time with a lot of new ideas. But whatever the next big shift in technology is, they will be left behind. I don’t know if that is AI, but it’s clear that in AI they are al…

I think the issue here is the public promises that were made. Jobs tended not to do that. Things were announced and released when they were ready, which gave them the time to do it right, without any delays. Sure, there were things like AirPower and the MobileMe widgets… things that were announced, but never shipped. However, by and large, a big new thing was announced, and a week later it would ship. The iPhone was…

> The iPhone was only announced 6 months early to avoid it being leaked by compliance filing (or maybe it was patents).

Is there evidence of this? I think the phone and watch were announced early because Apples vertical integration strategy and quality standards require them to reveal the existence to the rest of the company so they can get everything else working well with the new product category on release. It wouldn't be possible to keep it secret after revealing it internally so they did a simultaneous internal/external reveal to control the message, to maximize impact, to deny rumor sites, etc...

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#32

Post by wronglebowski »

azinman2 wrote: post #30
fartfeatures wrote: post #8

This was such a self inflicted own goal. Siri has needed work for years and every year they neglected it. When they first bought Siri it was state of the art and then it just languished. Pulling an Intel and sweating your assets until it is too late is never a good idea.

Siri has had many, many, many engineers on it for a while.

I don't doubt it, but what were they all doing? The Metaverse had 10k employees on it for multiple years and seemed to almost be a standstill for long periods of time. What do these massive teams do all day?

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#33

Post by GeekyBear »

dabinat wrote: post #14

I feel like the difference between Steve Jobs’ and Tim Cook’s leadership styles is that Cook is really good at optimizing existing processes, but does not have the vision to capitalize on what’s next. Apple got into the smartphone game at the right time with a lot of new ideas. But whatever the next big shift in technology is, they will be left behind. I don’t know if that is AI, but it’s clear that in AI they are al…

I'd say that after the Apple Maps launch, Tim Cook learned a lesson about allowing features that need additional work the time they need to fully bake.

Google just launched the Pixel 10 with several promised AI features broken, and could really stand to learn the same lesson.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-10-magic-cue-o...

https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/09/google-pulls-daily-hu...

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#34

Post by AnonHP »

shakna wrote: post #27
tiffanyh wrote: post #5

Do similar issues exist with Gemini on Android? Or are these challenges very Siri/iOS specific?

Gemini can and does send everything to Google. Apple's challenge is they want to maintain privacy, which means doing everything on-device. Which is currently slower than the servers that others can bring to the table - because they already grab every piece of data you have.

> Apple's challenge is they want to maintain privacy, which means doing everything on-device.

Apple is not trying to do everything on-device, though it prefers this as much as possible. This is why it built Private Cloud Compute (PCC) and as I understand it, it’s within a PCC environment that Google’s Gemini (for Apple’s users) will be hosted as well.

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#35

Post by ComputerGuru »

shakna wrote: post #27
tiffanyh wrote: post #5

Do similar issues exist with Gemini on Android? Or are these challenges very Siri/iOS specific?

Gemini can and does send everything to Google. Apple's challenge is they want to maintain privacy, which means doing everything on-device. Which is currently slower than the servers that others can bring to the table - because they already grab every piece of data you have.

This isn't planned to be exclusively on-device. Siri isn't exclusively on-device now, to begin with.

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#37

Post by owlbite »

wronglebowski wrote: post #32
azinman2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri has had many, many, many engineers on it for a while.

I don't doubt it, but what were they all doing? The Metaverse had 10k employees on it for multiple years and seemed to almost be a standstill for long periods of time. What do these massive teams do all day?

Have meetings to figure out how to interact with the other 9990 employees. Then try and make the skeleton app left behind by the team of transient engineers who left after 18 months before moving on to their next gig work, before throwing it out and starting again from scratch.

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#38

Post by flyingzucchini »

sampton wrote: post #18
dabinat wrote: post #14

I feel like the difference between Steve Jobs’ and Tim Cook’s leadership styles is that Cook is really good at optimizing existing processes, but does not have the vision to capitalize on what’s next. Apple got into the smartphone game at the right time with a lot of new ideas. But whatever the next big shift in technology is, they will be left behind. I don’t know if that is AI, but it’s clear that in AI they are al…

To be fair no one has solved ai assistant at consumer level yet.

They should start at getting very basic speech recognition working in cars would be a big help.

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#39

Post by WatchDog »

ronnier wrote: post #12

Is it not impressive what xai did with Grok? It's already integrated into twitter and my Tesla. So quickly? What prevented apple from doing the same but building out their equivalent of grok?

Grok runs on a cloud server, I think Apple are trying to do as much as possible on-device, which makes it a lot harder.

Re: Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags

#40

Post by SoftTalker »

vineyardmike wrote: post #21
dabinat wrote: post #14

I feel like the difference between Steve Jobs’ and Tim Cook’s leadership styles is that Cook is really good at optimizing existing processes, but does not have the vision to capitalize on what’s next. Apple got into the smartphone game at the right time with a lot of new ideas. But whatever the next big shift in technology is, they will be left behind. I don’t know if that is AI, but it’s clear that in AI they are al…

I feel like, today, most of the other LLM providers can do what "Apple Intelligence" promised - it'll link with my email/calendar/etc and it can find stuff I ask with a fuzzy search. That said, I don't really use this functionality all that often, because it didn't really (effortlessly) solve a big need for me. Apple sitting out LLMs means they didn't build this competency along the way, even when the technology is n…

You mean you don't have an everyday need to find an authentic Italian restaurant and make dinner reservations? Without actually doing it yourself?
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