Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but they don't work on iOS
Of course, iOS has the AppleScript ecosystem which is superior in most ways. I would not want Android intents there.
Uh, re-read my comment?
Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
541–550 of 581 posts
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jobs was kind of infamous for making people put their app / product in front of him while he sat in silence and used it. Harder to fake. But lots of execs don't know enough about their own products to interrogate like that. So they settle for BS presentations.
So kind of a chief test officer? We need more CEOs to have that kind of responsibility.
A CEO just needs to make sure that stuff gets done; doing it personally is just one of the ways to get there. (And not a particularly scalable one.)
For Apple it probably made sense, because the whole company's image and reputation is built on that stick.
But eg for a toilet paper manufacturer or a producer of fighter jets, the CEO shouldn't spend too much time personally testing the products.
For the former, because presumably the product doesn't change that often.
For the latter, because there's not even a single 'user' of the product. The experience of the huge ground crew (with various specialised roles) is just as important as the experience of the guy in the cockpit, etc. No CEO, and actually no single person on earth, has the expertise to judge all of these aspects of use by themselves.
That doesn't mean the experience of the users is irrelevant. Just the opposite! But the CEO will have to intelligently delegate.
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#543[dead]
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#544Earlier 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…
Going to hard disagree with most of this. At any giant company with tons of executives (the article talks about the "Top 100" alone), if you didn't have at least some misfires then it probably means you're being too conservative. If anything, I give Apple props for making management changes relatively quickly when things aren't working out. For example, I have the exact opposite view of the forcing out of Scott Forst…
> Forstall refused to own up to failures under his watch
Own up for what? Has anyone from Apple own up to Apple Intelligence or other design failures? Even in antenna gate Steve Jobs was defending it as holding it wrong. The firing of Scott was simply a power play. No one expected Maps to be perfect on first try. And it took Apple another 8-10 years before it was useable. But the Map Fiasco, if you could call it that. Was brown out of proportion with zero damage control from PR. A company that perhaps has the best PR department in history of cooperate America. If people are not reading between the line, Apple wanted him out, and very publicly.
>(the article talks about the "Top 100" alone)
Top 100, if that is indeed what it is has also completely changed. It used to be the 100 people Steve Jobs hand picked that if the company failed who he would recruit again for the next venture. And it is nothing "Top". You could be an engineer or doing some other lower level work but still included in the 100.
Now from that article Top 100 becomes management level meetings.
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
People keep talking in this thread about iOS / macOS being bug-ridden messes. I have to wonder if this is from users still on Intel chips. My work MacBook with a now 3+ year old M1 Max? Rock solid. Rarely run into any problems at all. My iPhone? Also rock solid. Rarely run into any problems. My Intel-based MacBook? Buggy mess. Like Apple has left the Intel side of the house to die on the roadside. As someone who stil…
It's not processor dependent. The OS is just buggy. Actually the only thing that is processor dependent is dtrace failing on Apple silicon and not fixed for years. Other bugs are very generic. I get focus bugs, password input box broken on lockscreen, search just not working in settings app, xcode crashing if I even look at it wrong, and lots more...
Why would my mother care about dtrace?
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going to hard disagree with most of this. At any giant company with tons of executives (the article talks about the "Top 100" alone), if you didn't have at least some misfires then it probably means you're being too conservative. If anything, I give Apple props for making management changes relatively quickly when things aren't working out. For example, I have the exact opposite view of the forcing out of Scott Forst…
> Forstall refused to own up to failures under his watch Own up for what? Has anyone from Apple own up to Apple Intelligence or other design failures? Even in antenna gate Steve Jobs was defending it as holding it wrong. The firing of Scott was simply a power play. No one expected Maps to be perfect on first try. And it took Apple another 8-10 years before it was useable. But the Map Fiasco, if you could call it that…
> Own up for what?
The epic failure that was the launch of de-google’d Apple Maps. Apparently Tim didn’t like putting his signature on the apology letter apologizing to customers.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130110043350/http://www.apple....
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#547Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#548John 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…
I don't know if Ahrendts is in this category she did transform Burberry into a high-end luxury online sales+retail company. She really was the exact opposite of the old head of the Currys boss, John Browett. I think she was responsible for how the Apple Watch is sold. For example, trying it on and having that experience. It's a tricky thing to get right, and I think she's got it spot on. Also, the watch strap business must have one of the highest margins ever, and I feel like she must be in part responsible for those sales and how you try on the straps. That Apple Store feels a lot like going into a Burberry where you can just experience stuff and people are happy to talk to you about anything and not try and sell you anything, so I'm not sure she should be in the category of everyone else you have here because in that respect, the stores do feel very good.
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big Company Experience means you can thrive Roman style bureaucratic power plays, not actually build things. It does take a different kind of person to bootstrap something out of a garage into a company, and then continue that fledgling company to the next phase, but instead of going BCE, they should be tapping back into the Founder Energy, not the BCE people.
I'm not a Big Company person or a Founder. From my perspective, it's the "continue to the next phase" that is the whole problem. Not everything needs to be expanded to it's logical extreme. I've worked in a lot of places, and the ideal employer is probably one who is in the middle, and planning on staying there. The concept of "grow until you've eaten everybody" is sickening, and tiring. Especially for your non-C-sui…
> The cut-throat capitalist would pull all their strings to get this customer.
This is an oversimplification. People specialize. There are people in Sales roles, and people in Operations roles. Yes, I absolutely expect the people in Sales roles to pull all their strings to get this customer. Their compensation (including commission) also incentivizes them in that direction. Naturally, closing the sale makes the company look better to its Board and shareholders.
The question is, who is the incompetent guy in Operations who is struggling with 65% on-time delivery? Maybe he's not executing well, maybe he needs to be replaced, especially if OTD slips to 55% and is turning into the weak link in the chain. And where is the executive who is supposed to be overseeing all this, to invest in and buff up Operations so that it will match the momentum of the rest of the company?
Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri
#550Earlier 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 don't dispute your claim, just that I still find Alex voice to be the best, and it's been the same since over 10 years ago. The other voices have issues, they don't sound too good at 1.5x.