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

[JohnRckr]

I recently sold all my Apple Products for the sake of simplicity and trying to stay away from too much tech - it’s mostly useless anyway. Only thing I kept is my iPhone and AirPods. And I have to say, with all this **** going on at Apple recently, plus their mediocre product release, really makes it easier for me to sell the iPhone too and move to Android. Phones with Android are years ahead at this point.

Even the ecosystem sucks nowadays. Meh.

 

[bob24]

I'm afraid if we are looking for the person most responsible for this mess, it is Tim Cook. I'm very sorry to say this, because I respect him a lot, and I think he was the behind the scenes guy who was responsible for much of Apple's success under Steve Jobs. He was the one who turned Jobs' vision into finished products -- setting up supply chains, production schedules, etc.

I think the mistake was hopping on the AI bandwagon. Apple should have just kept saying that Apple is going to approach AI thoughtfully, adapting features that are useful and ready for the public, while keeping working on other features behind the scenes. That's what'll end up happening here in the end.

Whether this is a blip in Apple's marketing strategy, or the beginning of a fundamental loss in trust remains to be seen.

I tend to agree (and in any case as the CEO he ultimately is the one responsable).

Basically when GenAI became a thing you had the likes of Google and Meta who had already invested in the area and used it as an opportunity to promote their work (although it wasn’t fully ready).

And you had the likes of Microsoft and Apple who were caught completely off guard. Cook’s failure was to live in a dreamland whereby Apple would be able to catch-up on its own within a few months and to promise this to customers. Nadella was much more realistic in that he recognised Microsoft’s lack of competency in the area and found a partner, but at the same time he positioned his company as a core infrastructure for AI and looked at every way it could be leveraged with existing products and customer data already stored on Microsoft servers, to have something unique to offer that even OpenAI can’t.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Nobody cares. Most of us don’t want to talk to our phones.

I'm not referring to the mythical chatbot capability that many people think Apple Intelligence is supposed to be.

 

[bluecoast]

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.

True. Mainly because iOS 11 was incredibly buggy.

Remember when even apple’s own marketing featured notifications zipping all over the screen to places where they were not meant to be?

Something that still sometimes happens to me on macOS.

 

[bluecoast]

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.

And who really buys a new iPhone specifically for a software feature (that other recent iPhones will get)?

To anyone other than people who hang around forums like these, they’ll simply upgrade if:

- Their phone is getting slow & losing its charge
- This year’s list of hardware features sound a compelling upgrade
- And the new phone design and colours look nice (I’m not being disparaging here)

That’s what makes deathmarches like this seem so futile.

I mean imagine having to stay late in other to finish something facile like the Memoji feature? I’d resign as soon as I could.

 

[SebCohen]

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

She works as well…it’s just…everything is comparative. I had a HTC Legend in 2010n😎🖖

 

[SebCohen]

What a joke Apple has become, the Siri upgrades with 18.4 are still years behind, we have Gemini live that can have full conversations while Siri can’t even set a timer on a HomePod properly

Ouch 😳

 

[bluecoast]

I feel for the team.

I still fundamentally agree with the Gruber post that something is wrong at apple.

I think we’re witnessing the end of its iPhone streak & Apple’s golden age bow now.

It’s not apparent, but then the beginning of the end rarely is.

No hot streak can last forever and we’ve now ended a new technology era with Ai, one that apple is not best placed to compete in.

And I see a company with not many friends left to call on as it starts to fall (if you’re a typical developer for them, would you really help them?).

 

[SebCohen]

Lot of armchair CEO’s in here. Remember, yes, it sucks that they are in the state they are in but there are many engineers that did and do great work. This message was to their employees. They aren’t going to destroy them like you all want. As many have pointed out, this appears to be a managerial issue right? Why tear down the engineers.

I’m slightly optimistic that now that it’s been a stain for them, they kick everything into high gear. The AI race is still in its infancy and while there’s no denying they are behind, Apple has a track record and the deepest pockets out of them all. I wouldn’t bet against them to close this gap.

Lots of pitchforks in here, some rightfully deserved, I don’t disagree. But marcumors forums members are not the general population - if you asked the general population and all of apples customers, how many even care?

The sky is not falling, friends. It’s just a little cloud passing over in the grand scheme of things in apples outlook.

You cannot judge an engineer on how “great work they do”. Only by the product they deliver.

 

[bluecoast]

The way Apple squandered their lead in hardware and software this decade will be studied in the years to come, much like the apple of the late 80s and early 90s

I partially agree with you.

The hardware has never been better imho. Apple silicon is incredible and we have macs with power that was almost unimaginable 10 years ago.

The software would be better if they weren’t rushing to implement silly marketing lead features all the time that look great on ads.

A snow leopard moment has been needed across all of apple’s platforms since iOS 11 introduced the new launchpad with iPhone X.

Now with the race to implement AI feature, they may have lost their chance…

IF they persist in doing big bang releases in September.

However, if they were to switch to a more agile approach when features are done when they’re done to a level of high quality, then their is a chance that they can recover.

But forcing their people to push things out of the door to tie into a marketing campaign is going to keep on reducing quality.

And just bury Siri now please. It’s embarrassing and has lost all credibility as a feature.

 

[SebCohen]

Apple knows that Siri has been behind for many years. It's built on 2 generations old methods. If you read the AI papers that Apple is publishing, you'd better understand their approach. Their research is leading edge.
Rather than releasing another "me too" LLM tool, where they would be behind the others, they are working on a whole new compute paradigm. Highly risky but if it works, will redefine personal computing.
Take a look at their new APIs. VisionOS and Spatial functions are designed to build a 3D model of your favourite locations, Home, work, cottage, car etc. This is the setting that will generate location context for your meta data. Have you seen spatial images on Vision Pro? - stunning. Lidar is included in all of their high end devices for a reason.
Apple is pushing the boundaries for edge computing models that will run on local devices - specifically phones. Combined with meta data (private) derived from every interaction within your domain, Apple has the potential to deliver magic.
When the edge devices don't have the compute power, the private servers will process your data and send the results back to your model. They can't do everything locally.
Their vision is bold and they are inventing solutions to bring about this new paradigm. They'll keep inventing until they deliver a worth while product. I'd rather they wait to get it right before release.

Fine. But then don’t ride in on a white horse and tell everyone you’re going to save the world….ifmthey just buy your shiny new products with this amazing revolutionary product that’s completely different and better than last years.

I don’t think the bile is because Apple Intelligence is more like Apple “Held-back” (cough cough). We’re all used to Siri and it’s more of an internal joke if anything. It’s USING AI as the main marketing for something that the only other difference from last year is a single button. THATS where the “anger” comes from.

 

[SebCohen]

I don't have issues with timers, weather, humidity checks, etc. All work just fine on my HomePod.



TV anal-ysts have about the same level of intelligence as a badly behaved parrot. Taking them seriously is at your own peril.

Heeeey, Downtown Josh Brown is AMAZING.

 

[Jashar7]

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."

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

As they should be bro the software is just so bad i can’t believe me $1200 iPhone when pressing for example settings section takes a second or two to load this thing should pop up before i even click it…

 

[SebCohen]

Lots of hostility in this thread towards the devs for no good reason. Yes I said “no good reason”.

Don’t blame the devs here, blame project management. Every time you see this kind of thing (and I’ve been part of this exact thing all throughout my decades long software development career) there is a team of developers screaming they need more time for development and a project manager saying “No.”.

Of course the devs are going to be discouraged. They’re working their asses off and unfinished work of theirs is getting released to the public to heavy scrutiny by people who aren’t going to be taking the backlash.

Anecdotal but to give you an idea how this kind of thing plays out my team was once given three months to implement something that should have been a year of development. We screamed we needed more time and our project manager said “Writing code is no different than writing an email, you get three months.”

Well the product shipped, it was awful and broken because it wasn’t enough time, and the development team got all the ridicule.

People don’t realize it’s not the developers making the timelines or over promising features.

A devs job is to make what the leadership tells them they want implemented. OR to explain to the same leadership why this isn’t possible with current level of technology or current level of manpower. The leadership then has to challenge this view, putting pressure on the team to deliver more than they think they are capable of.

We’re dunking on the devs because we experience their “failure” when we use the products. Hardware wise an iPhone has never been more durable and robust. Nobody complains about hardware quality anymore…except functionality perhaps, but that’s not a quality issue.

But it’s a ship. Managers and devs are in that ship. So in essence we’re dunking on the whole boat. Just easier to do it to the hands actually making the stuff.

This problem is layered clearly. Marketing also has a big part. The overselling, the icky smootheness or glibness in delivery (me at least), the idealised fantasy like fatamorgana created.

 

[mac-imperator]

I can only imagine how Steve Jobs would've handled all these dropped balls under Cook's watch.

 

[breather]

Yeah, but management must have told them to put together the PR blitz, with an unspoken "or else".

Yeah for sure. Just thought I say that if folks were to fired I’d say it’s PR (and management) that should be fired, not the coders that were sideswiped and given an impossible task.

 

[H2SO4]

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

This I'm not so sure about. If the public had specifically paid for something, (you know an ad campaign that said the new 16 Pro Max only with Apple intelligence and Siri for example), then maybe.
But if they said it was a coming soon feature that was part of the OS which is 'essentially' free then the water gets a bit muddy.

 

[tyranne201]

imagine the costumers

 

[Rafagon]

Awww, poor babies!

Cue the violins!

They need emotional support animals!

 

[hans1972]

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

The new Siri will not be based on the old code base for handling requests with a new model based on a LLM. It's more like Google who will replace Google Assistant with Gemini.

No there are probably parts of the code base being kept/improved like converting human voice to text and similar.

 

[hans1972]

She been stagnant. For at least a decade.

That doesn't matter since it will be replaced by a new Siri which for it's most important part isn't based on the old Siri code base.

 

[Deepshade]

Apple reassures disappointed AI team members!!!! Did I just read that!.

Siri has been pretty much useless since it arrived. Adding AI didn't do anything to make it more usable. AI in this case should be about natural communication with a device, with intelligent responses, not pretty emojis and speech that has to follow non human rules to work.

The Apple AI team at Apple should all be on performance related pay and those who managed the latest debacle should be sacked not cosseted!!

The latest Apple AI car crash release was appalling. For a company with such massive global resources and revenue it was a pitiful joke.

Watching Dan Barbera shaking his head trying to rebuke Hartley Charlton's completely valid, points here;

is on a par with Apple AI's development - blindly ignoring the majority of users wants and needs in respect of AI, while trying to justify the complete failure of the product they have touted as the premier reason to buy an iPhone.

 

[haemolysis]

People will praise “competitors may have launched them in this state or worse” …but they DID ship a faulty Siri product. And it IS “worse” than all competitors.

They could literally just wind us back to 2010 Siri and it would be a staggering improvement.

 

[0049190]

It’s was a management decision to release Apple AI before it was ready. Blame Tim Cook not the software developers. It was Tim Cook’s decision to continue with Siri rather than scrapping it and starting again. He must take responsibility for this failure.

 

[Fleuronique]

"We have other commitments across Apple to other projects,"
Yes, they released the Surveyor app yesterday, and before that the app Journal.
Both I doubt many people have asked for and maybe, just maybe Apple should have devoted the developers who worked on these apps to Ai <-> Siri functionality instead. 🤷‍♀️