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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

#501

Post by ryandrake »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #494
ryandrake wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Apple let the mouse be used when plugged in, everyone would do it immediately and never try using it unplugged So what? Why should that bother Apple so much? They sold the mouse. Who cares how the user uses it? A user who chooses to use their mouse while plugged in does not in any way affect the mouse's manufacturer. My Apple keyboard lets me use it while it's plugged in, and the world hasn't ended. Why didn't t…

> So what? Why should that bother Apple so much? They sold the mouse. Who cares how the user uses it? A user who chooses to use their mouse while plugged in does not in any way affect the mouse's manufacturer. If the user has a worse experience, that's a lose/lose situation. Of course they should care about things that affect the experience. > My Apple keyboard lets me use it while it's plugged in, and the world hasn…

How is using a peripheral while plugged in a worse experience? It's a better experience: I've had many more problems with wireless peripherals than wired ones. Bluetooth disconnecting randomly, batteries discharging while I'm working. Wireless is a worse experience in almost all ways.

If you make a wireless peripheral and everyone keeps using it while plugged in, the solution is not to force them to use it wirelessly. The solution is to make the wireless experience actually better so the user voluntarily chooses to use it.

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

#502

Post by mac-mc »

ksec wrote: post #237
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…

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…

Probably an agreeability thing? The iconoclasts who get things done tend to be disagreeable, but success at a reality scale is different than success in a large company.

You get promoted and go up because of your peer coworker group's support, which creates a strong incentive to not rock the boat and go against sacred cows that work well enough. The person who succeeds in big company post a hypergrowth phase is a very different person than one who made the hypergrowth happen.

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

#503

Post by michaelt »

pm90 wrote: post #383
lsllc wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big company problem. When companies grow, they eschew the folks who helped build it from the ground up and are intimately familiar with the business, products and customers in favor of people who have "worked at big companies". But in most cases, they didn't actually build them. So all they have to offer is the "big company baggage" that they were exposed to previously. You can imagine how it usually works…

“Big Company Experience” is a fucking plague. Smaller companies hire from them thinking they will bring magic sauce but all they bring is toxicity and political baggage. Meanwhile the people who went against all odds to get the company to where it is are pushed out, because “they’re not the right fit for this scale”. Nobody who says this ever talks about growing people into those roles.

Are they looking for magic sauce?

Or are they looking for someone who can navigate the legality of extending the American stock option scheme to the new office in El Salvador?

Maybe they want someone who knows how to implement a proper system of financial controls, which they've realised they need after a guy brought himself a canoe with the company's credit card?

I can see a founder wanting to hire people to take care of the growing compliance workload that comes with a growing company.

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

#505

Post by grey-area »

michaelt wrote: post #503
pm90 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Big Company Experience” is a fucking plague. Smaller companies hire from them thinking they will bring magic sauce but all they bring is toxicity and political baggage. Meanwhile the people who went against all odds to get the company to where it is are pushed out, because “they’re not the right fit for this scale”. Nobody who says this ever talks about growing people into those roles.

Are they looking for magic sauce? Or are they looking for someone who can navigate the legality of extending the American stock option scheme to the new office in El Salvador? Maybe they want someone who knows how to implement a proper system of financial controls, which they've realised they need after a guy brought himself a canoe with the company's credit card? I can see a founder wanting to hire people to take ca…

Buying a canoe with the company credit card is peanuts vs the waste of something like a multi-year ‘AI’ project which delivers zero useful results.

Maybe they should have kept the canoe guy instead of hiring grown up bean-counters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

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

#506

Post by phillipcarter »

deergomoo wrote: post #486
lapcat wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They addressed this once with a huge “0 new features” iteration with Snow Leopard to catch up on the worst of it This is a myth, though a myth created by Apple itself and Bertrand Serlet's tongue-in-cheek keynote slide. Snow Leopard actually had a number of new features: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_c... Moreover, Mac OS X 10.6.0 was much buggier than its immediately predecessor Mac OS…

> Now, unfortunately, Apple is on a rigid yearly OS update schedule I cannot think of anything that less needs yearly major updates than macOS. It's a mature, 25 year old OS that, unlike iOS, is used for an enormous range of professional work. I need to it be fast, stable, and predictable. The last thing I want is change for the sake of change, which largely describes the last 5-10 years of the OS. Wanna make Notes.a…

Effectively supporting the workflows people have on an OS necessarily involves significant OS updates given enough users and enough workflows.

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

#507

Post by Aurornis »

harmmonica wrote: post #448
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…

Is there an example, at a very large company, of an individual who “failed up” actually creating a hit in their next act? So many folks will tell you “I learned so much from my previous failure and without that I never would’ve succeeded blah blah blah.” I personally believe in that sentiment a bit, but just wondering if anyone’s aware of a well-known case where that’s happened.

> Is there an example, at a very large company, of an individual who “failed up” actually creating a hit in their next act?

If someone is successful their past is viewed differently. I doubt you’d “failed up” success stories because anyone who had great success would have their previous failures lost to history.

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

#508

Post by mckn1ght »

dylan604 wrote: post #398
mckn1ght wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's only that way because you let it be. It is possible to operate in life without staring at a small screen all day. I hardly ever look at mine, and yet I'm a fully functioning person contributing to society in a positive manner. You just have to admit it is a problem, and take it from there

Disagree here. We could have very different sets of obligations in life coming from different sources, not all of which are under your control.

And the phone does consolidate many, many technologies that used to be disparate objects. Now, you can also live life without a camera, CD player or walkman, cookbooks, planner/calendar (i actually still use a paper one in addition to calendar/reminder apps), and letters coming in the mail, sure. But I don’t think you’ll get fat proposing that to everyone, and these are just a few examples. Not everyone is going to want to live a life of pure asceticism.

I think back on my parents’ stacks of mail and realize that searchable email is way better than that.

I also just bought concert tickets for a few shows in the summer. Yes, there is a paper ticket option, that you pay to have mailed to you. Have you ever lost a paper ticket before, or tried reselling them? Much easier to deal with with the AXS app.

A buddy visited a while back and getting him a transit card without using the smartphone option took about 30 minutes.

I think it’s just that after having centralized so many things into one device, there’s a new step function horizon to cross to make it more effective to use or come up with a new form factor.

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

#509

Post by duderific »

boplicity wrote: post #462
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - Google maps has been fine for me, my only annoyance being that iPhone often defaults to Apple Maps and I have to manually switch over. Nonetheless, your comment convinces me that I should try Apple Maps more seriously. Maybe I’m missing out.

I used to trust Google Maps, but in the last year it has given me some very bad directions that not only were wrong, but were sometimes dangerous. I've started to very much not trust its directions, which is unfortunate, because it used to be so great.

I've been using Apple Maps exclusively for a few years now, as I like the turn by turn directions much better, and the UI is more readable to me, as others have noted.

My wife seems to like Google Maps better, so we tried it on a recent trip. I ended up going around in circles in an unfamiliar area, and it kept telling me to turn where no road existed. I was flabbergasted it was so bad, as the last time I used it, I didn't remember it being so unreliable.

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

#510

Post by p_j_w »

samatman wrote: post #414
Dylan16807 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also consider the mouse that couldn’t charge while you use it I've come around a lot on that design. Well, it's still an awful mouse shape as far as I'm concerned. But putting the port on the bottom gets people to unplug the mouse. I like that as a goal. And it can do a temporary charge pretty fast, so the downside isn't very big.

I've never heard from anyone who likes the Apple Mouse enough to use it, but doesn't like the charging from the bottom. It's frequently cited as a 'flaw' by those who don't use it, this has become a bit of conventional wisdom. In reality it's a non-issue. I have heard from a whole lot of people who don't like the Apple Mouse. I don't like that mouse. But it isn't because of the charge port. It's an uncomfortable shap…

>It's frequently cited as a 'flaw' by those who don't use it

Maybe without this flaw they would use it.

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