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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

#211

Post by SirMaster »

korale wrote: post #124

Apple needs a major change in the way they do software overall. AI is one concrete manifestation of their issues but it runs much deeper. They still produce great hardware but it's held back by their software. Would love to see them rethink the entire stack from the OS APIs and SDKs, dev tools, WatchOS, to features like extensibility, Shortcuts, and of course, how they leverage AI. At this point, they should probably…

Really? Software is currently why I prefer Apple products. I prefer iOS to Android and I prefer macOS to Windows.

There is always room for improvement, but I never got the feeling they need to drastically change things or start fresh. They just need to squash some of the big bugs IMO.

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

#212

Post by veidr »

scarface_74 wrote: post #202
JKCalhoun wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you're saying, but the Cult of Jobs had its downsides too. I think Apple started to die with the iPod and got worse the more successful it became. Then again, maybe I always prefer the underdog.

You do remember the crash prone classic MacOS, the ridiculous Performa line, the Copland disaster and that Apple was almost bankrupt? Also the classic MacOS where you (the user) had to pre allocate memory per application and where holding down the mouse button stopped any application from running in the background.

Apple basically _did_ die, after Performa/Copland (and let's not forget Open Transport!!)

The resuscitation was truly miraculous.

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

#213

Post by basisword »

Spivak wrote: post #183
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…

Do people really think stuff like this makes you look cool? It's super cringe. The only way you get away with being that stupid and that much of an asshole to a room of adults is by being the CEO. This isn't some insightful observation, if the phone was waterproof the demo would have just looked silly as it sank despite having available room. Why did you even ask the question if you already decided the answer? The en…

>> "can't be made smaller without time and money we don't have to do it."

If the CEO is telling you it is important to him, then he's telling you he'll give you the resources. Telling him it "can't be made smaller" when you admit it can is silly.

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

#214

Post by mschuster91 »

roydivision wrote: post #171
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…

I have no idea how Apple prioritise their bug fixing, but it really looks to me like bugs only get fixed when adding new features, if at all. This is such a trivial big win as well, create a software dev team to focus on the outstanding bugs. Head it with one or two senior developers, make it the first step in onboarding new developers. What a great way to learn, and make a difference. This is not rocket surgery, and…

> This is such a trivial big win as well, create a software dev team to focus on the outstanding bugs. Head it with one or two senior developers, make it the first step in onboarding new developers. What a great way to learn, and make a difference.

Sounds nice on paper. In practice, the seniors assigned to the team will see it as a career dead-end (because fixing bugs doesn't get management attention, but flashy new features do), juniors lack the experience to avoid edge cases or to navigate the project structure, and the seniors/intermediates on the "actual" development team don't have time to waste on reviewing and aiding code of juniors and bugfixes because then they have ownership over that...

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

#215

Post by scarface_74 »

mapmap wrote: post #206
scarface_74 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ever since Jobs returned to Apple, it's become top-down and the engineers are no longer driving the ship. Management want the features Were you using Macs before Jobs came back? The entire operating system for PowerPC based Macs was technical debt with parts of the OS running under emulation. It was a buggy unreliable crash prone mess.

>Were you using Macs before Jobs came back? I think he was :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(video_game)

Well I feel dumb for asking him :)

Yeah I had that game on my Mac LCII back in 1992 and Parena was great too.

The point still stands though. The operating systems were horrible back in the mid 90s and both Macs I had back then - the Mac LCII and PowerMac 6100 - were cripple by being a half speed bus. Back before it was necessary.

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

#216

Post by tehlike »

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…

I am curious how data driven apple teams are. Any ideas there?

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

#217

Post by smallmancontrov »

JimDabell wrote: post #99
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…

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…

Framing Snow Leopard as a "bugfix release" didn't happen for enlightened reasons, it happened because they cannibalized the Mac OS team and sent everyone to work on iPhone. The skeleton crew left behind lost the capacity to do anything but bugfixes.

This is why Snow Leopard was so buggy on release but unlike previous releases actually did get better: management stopped pushing new features, and even a skeleton crew was able to polish it over time. If you look at a map of tentpole Mac OS features, you can see that the ambition vanished with the iPhone's release and didn't recover for a decade.

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

#219

Post by iainmerrick »

rusk wrote: post #77
Culonavirus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe go all in on local on device low latency LLMs? They make their own hardware so they could probably do it and do it well with enough focus and investment.

No reason why most apps couldn’t be cloud hosted and devote all the significant local edge compute to such a digital companion.

That seems like the opposite of what they were suggesting? Unless by “edge compute” you meant user’s devices, but I assume you intended the usual meaning of CDN edges.

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

#220

Post by moandcompany »

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…

JG is famous for research teams doing "hillclimbing" but the organizations doing this seldom thought deeply about where they were hoping to end up, what would be good-enough, or when it would be time to find a new hill.
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