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Apple Updates Leadership Page to Include New AI Chief John Giannandrea
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Before I throw any parties celebrating John Giannandrea’s hiring and responsibilities let’s see if he is still there a year or 2 down the road. Many companies either always had or at some time developed a ‘Not Invented Here’ mindset. I’ve heard about a lot of hires at Apple that the next thing I hear about the person is that they are leaving.
Yes, let’s pretend that Google’s and other competitors things aren’t worse if not equally terrible...
Works for me saying 'do not disturb'.
This one is better...
Do you think that's a technical reason or the fact Apple doesn't want people annoying others by turning on their (and potentially others') flashlights with voice?Works for me saying 'do not disturb'.
This one is better...
I mean, do you really think Siri can send a text, but not turn on the flashlight? It seems to me it's just a business decision, like a lot of the "shortcomings" of Siri. You might not like it, but let's not act like this is an amazing technical achievement.
Odd that John Giannandrea doesn't even mention Apple in his LinkedIn profile as of today. Wanted to see what his title is at Apple and where he stands relative to the previous publicity hire of Russ Salakhutdinov who's Director of AI at Apple.
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It's probably an oversight rather than technical reason since Google Assistant can do it on iOS. Definitely not a business decision since it's showing up in a later version of iOS. This feature is actually used a lot so lack of it is a shortcoming. I've got $25 2013 Moto G Android 5.1 scattered throughout to turn on/off flashlight instead of fumbling in the dark for the light switch or when my hands are tied up besides other home assistant type tasks so I'd expect a $1K iPhone running the latest iOS release to be able to do the same.
he's in the same row with Craig and Jony, why? he's not considered a senior Vice President?
https://www.apple.com/leadership/
https://www.apple.com/leadership/
One piece of data - I bought two echo spots, one for me and one for my mum and also got a google home mini because I knew from my iPhone that Siri was related to that brown animoji and that Alexa and Google were strides better.
My mum who is tech illiterate loves the Echo spot. I showed her how to use siri on the iPad and she still prefers Alexa.
I never use Siri so personally I don’t care about any improvements made to it even if it ends up becoming the best assistant on the planet. I just don’t find it convenient to talk to my phone (I find it more awkward than anything) and I don’t run into any use cases that requires it. I’m sure many of you find it useful though.
I've been using my HomePod everyday since release and find both the device and Siri work extremely well together.
Apple hired Giannandrea back in April, stealing him away from Google where he ran the search and artificial intelligence unit.
Giannandrea is leading Apple's AI and machine learning teams, reporting directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. He has taken over leadership of Siri, which was previously overseen by software engineering chief Craig Federighi.
Siri was under Eddie Cue originally and wrongfully so but occurred cause Siri was an internet connected service which is Cue’s scope. When the original founders that created Siri leading to Apple’s acquisition had left Apple, Siri had no direction.
Then Cook appointed Siri under Federighi since it’s softeare that creates Siri and makes Siri does what it does through the use of our devices. This was a wrong move because Federighi has far too much on his plate. He shouldn’t have been in charge since he was an underling of iOS creator. Not enough sxpertise in AI field.
Hoping this guy is up to the task and welcome to the Apple fold.
The development of CoreML & Siri under one dedicated team ... I see more than AR blending with Siri and W1 chip evolution and gyro. I see first Apple Watch combining with AR thin industry leading glasses as the main computing wearable to replace iPhone. Long term anyway.
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Again, you have no idea why they don’t allow it.
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Hahaha...just confirms I’m right. I know the numbers backwards and forwards...AI is not a profit engine, yet. Apple isn’t interested in stuff they don’t make money on...and this stuff is still mostly useless beyond the stuff Siri already does.
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Tech illiterate folks probably rely on AI more because they don’t know how to do much.
I still can’t get anyone to tell me what is so useful from Google or Alexa that Siri can’t do. She can do anything I ask her.
You must’ve missed half of the presentation then.
Shortcuts isn’t just an app; it’s a new Siri framework to execute a series of tasks. You can do it manually with the Shortcuts app or you can let Siri do it for you through machine learning. That’s the AI part that you either didn’t understand or missed completely.
No one is pretending. It's a fact that Siri is horrible.Yes, let’s pretend that Google’s and other competitors things aren’t worse if not equally terrible...
Because of a video from 2017 that has tons of biases? Lol! Love people’s definition of fact these days.
When I first heard they hired Giannandrea back approximately three months ago, I believe Apple is bringing the changes to Siri. Siri has always had the potential to be the best, but unfortunately it’s been surpassed by Google and other competitors. I think Siri works great for in-house commands, but where it really needs improvement and I’m hoping this new hire can improve dictation and deciphering. I use Siri quite frequently for my AirPods, iPhone, iPad, etc. And I think we should start seeing some these changes hopefully in iOS 13 in 2019.
LMAO ... he's been visiting the GND
or the fast ones down the block while he's been "working late" The key would be that Apple doesn't continue to fall behind with their AI in terms of real advancements based on "user privacy and security. See my reply below on this.
Automator would be VERY nice name for this. Apple already has a feature called Shortcuts and it's in Settings for auto complete when you type one phrase it's auto replaced with what you keyed in.
e.g. Type TTYL, and iOS replaces that with "Talk to you later".
Apple has been making improvements:
Incantation of commands with various accents in languages (recognition improvements)
15 languages supported and growing (not sure how the competition fairs here)
App integration from first to various third parties (we're seeing huge support and rapidly with each new change to Siri; even if Siri takes a LOT time to improve)
etc.
The REAL challenge for John Giannandrea is ...
1) Change the wide perception that Siri cannot advance due to end user / Apple corporate privacy concerns; regardless of what device Siri is invoked on. I recall BlackBerry always talking about security and development of devices, features therein (BBOS to BB10), and innovations beyond their MDM/EMM server and network service security really REALLY slowed them down to end up what they are now: a service and patent company. Their working on car self driving automation and security of telemetry but isn't everyone else?!
2) not be called "Jony/Johnny" because this will tick off Ive and then an internal power struggle will ensue and well ...
a) Jony Ive will leave Apple and Apple struggles to have a great designer work for them to continue the slack Ive has been in (iOS 7 really drained him), or
b) Jony will stay his role is NEVER going to be in jeopardy, EVER ... and John will get the boot!
^ we've seen all of this with Forstall vs Federighi.
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Siri was the best for awhile until more competition beyond Google's original "assistant" debuted.
It's not often in Apple's history for them to come out with something in the computing industry that they're complete the first to debut (and not something that is just a better iteration of what's already there; aka CD-ROM, trackpad, etc all better than something before them). Siri was completely radical and NEW to the industry in iPhone 4S.
Siri for me has already worked incredibly well with dictation (both indoors and outdoors) on iPhones since 4S. I'm very impressed with accuracy on WatchOS for replies prior to WatchOS4 yet currently still very good just more mistakes with headsets used. Apple TV dictation is what's used for Siri and it's VERY good except when looking for Netflix's search for movies. I blame the tiny mic on the remote for that.
Next up from Giannandrea ...
Allow Siri to run commands from the owner of device after the initial training not everyone!!
Allow Siri to run commands when iPhone is locked (Turn on/off flashlight, Send Location, reply to iMessages/SMS)
Allow Siri to have a few commands run and stored locally:
Calendar
SMS (to send when in mobile network connectivity; with original time stamp)
Mail (compose/reply/forward mail using commands and dictation; with original time stamp)
Time & Date (announce this)
Emergency Calls
^ Taking out Calls, SMS, would be nice to have these while commuting on the subway out of mobile network connectivity! For anyone to get Siri to work, even for Time & Date when no internet connection exists ... well you cannot. You need to disable her and go back to Nuance Inc's implementation on iOS devices prior to Siri. It's still there.
Not the same for you I guess? In countries not using the English language Siri struggles a lot when being confronted with a mix of e.g. German language commands and requests for English music, movies or artist names (most of them are English to be honest). You need to try it several times and worse case have to pronounce the English titles in your own language, which is and sounds hilarious as you can imagine.
This is also the reason the HomePod was first not shipped to other countries besides U.K. and the US, as there's actually no work around for us besides using spoken words.
From a hardware perspective, I second you, but I can imagine you're not facing the other AI issues just described as much as others do.
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Totally. I would’ve be surprised if we don’t see any significant changes to Siri until WWDC 19.
I expect we’ll see lots of subtle changes beneath the hood, before then, though.
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I’d heard that people who are truly on the cutting edge of AI, didn’t want to work in ‘just another division’ of software engineering or services at Apple or for someone who they felt was not a leader in their field. With all due respect to Craig F and Eddie C I guess they’re not AI experts.
Working under someone who reports to the CEO and who presumably has a lot of power, should attract more AI superstars.
Exactly what I mean. Is Siri a controller or is Siri an assistant? If Siri is going to be an assistant it must become far more intelligent, including a isn’t leap forward in contextual awareness. Shoot, right now it can’t even parse all my contacts correctly.
I wish this guy was given iCloud too. Just anybody but Eddy Cue having it.
iCloud came out in 2011, didn't it? Apart from iCloud photo library and the iOS 7 era lick of paint, it's not had any significant updates.
Here's hoping that 2019 sees a significant change. I'd like a new name for a start i.e. if Apple Maps on the web, is called maps.apple.com, can we have cloud.apple.com too i.e. Apple Cloud.
Yea I am not really a fan of anything Eddy has done over the years and I feel like he's a pretty obvious weak link to the team. There very well may be positive attributes underneath it all, but I am not seeing it. I think that is a position that could definitely be improved.
I wish maps.apple.com worked on non-Macs. I'd happily use it instead of el Goog.