Apple Reassures Siri Team Members Feeling Disappointed and Embarrassed by Apple Intelligence Delay

[MacRumors]

Apple is reassuring employees on the Siri team who may be feeling demotivated by the recent Siri delays and the bad press surrounding the company's decisions, reports Bloomberg.

In a Siri team meeting, Apple senior director Robby Walker acknowledged that employees might be feeling "angry, disappointed, burned out and embarrassed" following the Siri delay, but he praised the hard work of employees and the "incredibly impressive" features they developed, saying that Apple would continue to work to "ship the world's greatest virtual assistant" to Apple users. "I saw so many people giving everything they had in order to make this happen and to make incredible progress together," he said.

The situation was described as "ugly" because the Siri features were shown off in public with marketing campaigns and TV commercials before there was a fully functional product. Siri's new functionality was also tied to the iPhone 16 launch in advertising, and it was a feature that Apple used to promote its iPhone 16 models.

Apple decided to delay the functionality because of quality issues, with Walker telling employees that Siri's new features were only working properly 60 to 80 percent of the time.

To encourage employees, Walker demonstrated Siri locating his driver's license number, manipulating apps by embedding content in an email and adding recipients, and finding specific photos of a child. Employees on the Siri team will be able to use time away to recharge and prepare for "hard work ahead."

Walker told employees that it is not yet clear when the new Siri features will be ready for launch, but Apple's statement about the delay mentioned "in the coming year." That has been interpreted as 2026, or in an update to the iOS 19 operating system launching this fall.

Walker said that Apple is aiming for iOS 19, but that the timeline "doesn't mean that we're shipping then." Apple will ship the Siri functions when they're ready to launch, and the company does not want to provide the public with unfinished features, even if "competitors might have launched them in this state or worse."

"We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker said, citing new software and hardware initiatives. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." He said decisions on timing will be made on a "case-by-case basis" as work progresses on products planned for next year.

"Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri," he said. "We're going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready."

According to Bloomberg, Apple does not have plans to fire Siri chief John Giannandrea or any other Siri executives at this time, though there have been discussions about moving additional senior executives under Giannandrea to speed up development.

Article Link: Apple Reassures Siri Team Members Feeling Disappointed and Embarrassed by Apple Intelligence Delay

 

[brofkand]

If they believe that Siri is the world‘s greatest personal assistant, that’s part of the problem. Apple has not shipped good software in years.

It doesn’t sound like this is ever going to ship, let’s be honest. And that’s probably for the best because it will never work. The only part of Apple Intelligence that’s actually useful is the part that is outsourced to open AI.

 

[dba415]

Apple's fall from grace is pretty sad

 

[Minato1990]

Re assuring for wha?
CRACK SOME HEADS TIM COOK THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OR BETTER YET YOU COME OUT AND APOLOGIZE FOR PUSHING VAPORWARE BUCKO!

 

[abatabia]

The public needs a keynote apology at this point. This is beyond embarrassing. The fall from grace indoor their software is accelerating.

 

[fel10]

As they should be.

 

[vertsix]

So this just confirms this is a managerial issue and not an engineering issue. This Walker guy needs to get promptly fired.

If he were a competent director or manager, he would have a game plan to address concerns on the press and concerns from customers instead of "reassuring" the team that what they're doing is working - because it is not.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

...In a Siri team meeting...

Boy that sounds productive

 

[poematik13]

Just dissolve and cut the entire siri business entirely. its useless.

Cut siri, vision pro, and arcade. Let all the staff go.

Take those 3 budgets combined and put them into a new, dedicated "OS stability and bug fixes" department.

 

[JonathanParker]

Someone at MacRumors has been having fun with the Siri posters recently. Good on you!

I feel confident that there's more waiting to be used as the Siri chaos unfolds.

 

[GMShadow]

Working 60-80% of the time sounds better than I'd expected - some of the Chicken Littles running around made it seem like it was all still vaporware.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Wow sounds like what every company in the history of the world goes through when bringing products to market. Taking time to develop the best product out there. It’s really 100% no news here lol but the media needs to fabricate something to get those clicks!

 

[ShivneelSingh]

Siri was working well in 2010, but now she's a disaster.

 

[Alwaysfindsaway]

Thanked them for their good work? Hahaha That right there shows how utterly in denial these people are. He should be fired right away, Giannandrea obviously can’t do his job properly.

All this is like the opposite of Steve’s reality distortion field. A distortion field of mediocrity.

 

[reden]

Tim Cook is not a visionary, that guy just milks products til their last penny and creates dozens of variations and confusion when purchasing a product. So sad!

 

[iBreatheApple]

“worlds greatest virtual assistant” 🤣🤣 Quite the antithesis, actually.

 

[vertsix]

If they believe that Siri is the world‘s greatest personal assistant, that’s part of the problem. Apple has not shipped good software in years.

It doesn’t sound like this is ever going to ship, let’s be honest. And that’s probably for the best because it will never work. The only part of Apple Intelligence that’s actually useful is the part that is outsourced to open AI.

Last good software I can remember in recent years was iOS 12. That actually brought some stability and impressive performance gains on existing hardware. It has been downhill since then.

 

[brofkand]

Working 60-80% of the time sounds better than I'd expected - some of the Chicken Littles running around made it seem like it was all still vaporware.

There’s no way they are being truthful because the regular Siri we’ve had for 15 years doesn’t even work 80% of the time

 

[iBreatheApple]

Wow sounds like what every company in the history of the world goes through when bringing products to market. Taking time to develop the best product out there. It’s really 100% no news here lol but the media needs to fabricate something to get those clicks!

She been stagnant. For at least a decade.

 

[ZipZilla]

Why is Apple tolerating mediocrity? Siri is 10 years behind Android. We all know what Steve would have done.....

 

[GuruZac]

He should first be honest and admit Siri is in fact no where near the "world's great virtual assistance."

 

[cocky jeremy]

I don't get it. If you don't have it fully functioning, why promise, or even promote, a delivery date? Just say, "It's coming" and keep working on it.

 

[Seamaster]

Employees on the Siri team will be able to use time away to recharge and prepare for hard work ahead.

Seems to me they’ve been on “time away” since the 4S.

 

[jgrove]

Some of the comments here don’t take into account the human impact of working for Apple.

It seems that Apple puts huge pressure on the software teams to get features out of the door, to line up with new hardware releases.

This is due to the every year hardware refresh, meaning new software across a range of products, it’s unnecessary and only done as Apple maintains its profit margins.

Software from Apple has been poor for a long while, largely because the teams are not given the time needed to get it working in a way that meets quality control.

I feel for the teams that clearly wanted to get it working, even after they told Apple it might not be ready for the gravy train hardware refresh.

 

[ZipZilla]

There’s no way they are being truthful because the regular Siri we’ve had for 15 years doesn’t even work 80% of the time

2 biggest unacceptable Siri fails:

"you have to unlock your phone first"

"Here are the search results for what you asked"

Until these 2 responses are eliminated, Siri will be 100% a JOKE and so far behind Android, it's hilarious. Every new iPhone is a joke because the software is terrible.