Apple AI Chief John Giannandrea Retiring After Siri Delays

[bLackjackj]

Retiring? Yeh right 😂

“We are thankful for your time”,..now your Terminated!

Finally,..Apple admitting it had the wrong man in charge!…John will now spend the rest of his time WFH (picking weeds) Lol

 

[JaydenA]

I wish the bubble would pop soon, but in the meantime;

I do feel that Apple should not bake a predefined LLM into Siri, they should open the choice of model to the user. If you want to use a Gemini app go for it, if you want to use SmithersGPT app go for it, if you want to use Claude app go for it, if you want to use a ZH model app (and can read chinese) go for it, and if you want to point it at your own Studio with an MLX model of your own choice then go for it too.

And if you wish to use Gramma Siri as she is now, free of intelligence, and more than willing to show you what she found of the web, then thats fine too.

But tightly building LLMs into the devices, as microsoft are really going to town on, is an uncomfortable thought for me.

 

[bLackjackj]

If I were him I would just take the money and eff off to the Mediterranean and never think about any of this stuff or any of these people ever again.

That’s exactly what is happening.

This is Apples way of terminating and not giving the market any jitters. He won’t be heard from again.

 

[Macalway]

I wish Subramanya all the luck at his future position at Meta.

 

[Digital Dude]

I’ve lost count of how many engineers and executives have walked away from Apple in recent months. News like this helps me decide which direction to go with my next device. 🙅

 

[dannyyankou]

It seems like Subramanya was at Microsoft only since July. I wonder why he left so quickly.

 

[bmark]

Apple had an AI chief? They can't innovate out of their ass!

 

[iObama]

The real story here isn’t necessarily AI, but that whatever the next big step in technology is, Apple is no longer able to own it and get ahead of it.

They have much bigger and better competitors now. One company that doesn’t get enough mention is Facebook - they are doing much better with both “spatial computing” and AI, which are the big things Apple has reached for as the next big thing and publicly failed at. I’m sure Apple wish they could be doing as well as they are, which is an interesting position for them to be in.

It doesn't surprise me that Apple's not ahead of it – they're rarely first to market. What's surprising is that Apple's so far behind – not just "working on refining it until it's ready to ship and then being the best, even if it's late."

It really seems like they're at the ground level here and it's going to take them years to catch up to where the industry is even right at this moment.

 

[captrlp]

“Retiring” is the business term….Voluntold is the truth!

 

[JosephAW]

macOS 27, iOS 27, iPhone 17 or newer it is then… 😵

 

[moulderine]

John Giannandrea came from Google to Apple to be replaced by Amar Subramanya who (effectively) had just come from Google.

The NYT story of Giannandrea having to fight Apple to get them (unsuccesfully) to invest in AI seriously makes this seem more like a cover job for Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri failures, and them passing the blame off. Hence why he's getting a "nicer" send off ad advisor role before 'retirement'.

To be frank, I just doubt a long tenured Google employee thought AI wasn't that big a deal and didn't see the need to invest, and the fact they replaced him with another former Google employee tells me that its really the more tenured Apple leadership that is likely the issue here.

 

[bigandtasty]

This is all becoming a joke. This is not the way Apple has ever been. New Apple is like Microsoft of yesteryear. Please work on the software! No need for new hardware with software that keeps getting worse or just teased that it's coming sometime, years into the future. Pull it together Tim!

 

[maverick2007]

God swear! Since the launch of Siri, I have never used it! So this news is useful for me as I see something meaningful done by Apple.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Amar spent 16 years at Google working on ML/AI, last thing he worked on being Gemini. He's only been at MS since July this year. I wonder what kind of offer Tim made him to bring him on board only ~4 months after starting with MS.

Or what kind of **** show he walked into at MS.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

Apple has never lead in social media, or video hosting, or anything like that.

Back in the day they were the #1 site for movie trailers

 

[dba415]

So this guy left google joined microsoft then got poached by apple after 4 months at microsft, and then is already retiring? dude must have made out like a bandit, free money for doing nothing.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I do feel that Apple should not bake a predefined LLM into Siri, they should open the choice of model to the user.
...
But tightly building LLMs into the devices, as microsoft are really going to town on, is an uncomfortable thought for me.

The problem is Apple advertised just about every product they make except for the Apple TV as coming soon with an LLM agent baked in. They really can't not do it at this point.

 

[Happy_John]

I’ve lost count of how many engineers and executives have walked away from Apple in recent months. News like this helps me decide which direction to go with my next device. 🙅

With all due respect, one person’s purchase of their one next device is not going to rock the boat.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

So this guy left google joined microsoft then got poached by apple after 4 months at microsft, and then is already retiring? dude must have made out like a bandit, free money for doing nothing.

No no no, John Giannandrea is the one retiring. Amar (the one from Google, then Microsoft for only 4 months) is replacing him.

 

[Happy_John]

The problem is Apple advertised just about every product they make except for the Apple TV as coming soon with an LLM agent baked in. They really can't not do it at this point.

No, but they can quietly drag their feet and commit as few resources as possible until the bubble bursts and the resulting storm blows over, mitigating the negative effects on the same shareholders who were screaming for AI development in the first place, because AI was the „shiny new promise”.

Which does seem to be exactly what they’re doing. Outsourcing development by buying a Gemini model looks very much like outsourcing colleratal damage.

Better late then never.

Compare that to Meta, who really are going to feel the pain when the reality that AI in it’s current form cannot recoup investment money already burned, yet alonę provide any reasonable return on investment.

 

[JaydenA]

The problem is Apple advertised just about every product they make except for the Apple TV as coming soon with an LLM agent baked in. They really can't not do it at this point.

This is true, Last year's keynote was "Apple Intelligence" even to the point of making it the prime and only reason for that year's model, and this year's was "Liquid Glass" which has been polarising.

But there are so many safety issues now coming to light, and the number of people who see the "6 fingered, testament, emdash" uncanny valley of it (not to mention the power and water use often in drought affected areas) is growing more each month.

Apple could almost take a principled stand (especially if Tim is likewise 'retired' next year) and say "well, we almost made a mistake baking it in, but we do believe in privacy and choice. We have put MCP-like hooks into calendar, mail, photos, etc, but they are not enabled by default. Go an download Gemini and go to town.

And for the growing number who are now seeing the warts of the tech, they could have one final place (outside Linux) that isn't

Artificially Infected.

 

[Corefile]

Bring back Scott.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

Apple AI Chief John Giannandrea "Retiring" After Siri Delays​

Fixed that...

 

[Rradcircless]

Wait, I’m confused by all of these names as this man retiring now the same who took over from the vision department?

 

[Happy_John]

This is like saying “if Apple can’t lead in the search engine race, how can I trust them to make an Internet capable phone” in 2007.
AI is a feature, not a product.

This. Despite all the marketing, Apple are more than ever a hardware company. The services they sell are specific to that hardware and the software they produce is simply to enable that hardware.