Last Siri Co-Founder, Tom Gruber, Retires From Apple

[MacRumors]

Tom Gruber, who served as head of Siri's Advanced Development group and was one of Siri's original cofounders, has left Apple, reports The Information. His departure from the company was confirmed by an Apple spokesperson, who told The Information that he was retiring to pursue "personal interests in photography and ocean conservation."

Gruber created Siri alongside Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, releasing the original Siri as an app on the iOS App Store in 2010. Apple acquired Siri two months later, and Cheyer, Kittlaus, and Gruber all joined the company at that time.

Kittlaus left Apple in 2011 and Cheyer left in 2012, and the duo teamed up again to create Viv, a new artificial intelligence project that was acquired by Samsung in 2016. Samsung used Viv to create Bixby, its current AI assistant platform.

Gruber stayed on at Apple for several years after the other two Siri co-founders departed, but with his retirement, none of the original Siri creators are left at Apple.

Apple's Siri team is going through a leadership change at the moment with the May hiring of John Giannandrea, former head of Google's search and artificial intelligence unit.

Apple just last week updated its leadership page to add Giannandrea, who is now serving as Apple's chief of machine learning and AI strategy. Giannandrea is leading Apple's AI and machine learning teams, and Apple has combined its Core ML and Siri teams under him.

Prior to Giannandrea's hiring, Siri development was overseen by software engineering chief Craig Federighi, who took over from Eddy Cue in 2017. Apple has been facing increasing criticism over Siri's capabilities compared to other AI-based personal assistants in recent years, with many suggesting Siri has serious shortcomings compared to options from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Apple in iOS 12 introduced major improvements to Siri through a new Siri Shortcuts feature that's coming in iOS 12, which is designed to let users create multi-step tasks using both first and third-party apps that can be activated through Siri.

Along with Gruber, Apple's head of search, Vipul Ved Prakash, has also left the company, according to The Information. Prakash joined Apple when his company, Topsy, was acquired in 2013. His search team was also within the Siri group.

Article Link: Last Siri Co-Founder, Tom Gruber, Retires From Apple

 

[DakotaGuy]

I bet if you ask Siri she won’t know he retired.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Siri will offer to look that up on the web for you... probably looping right back to this page.

Or perhaps look up something called TomGrouper and claim to not find anything.

Or perhaps show pictures of some guy named Tom with a catch of grouper fish.

Or since he's one of the creators, a Siri easter egg might proclaim him the greatest of guys who other guys want to be and girls want to meet.

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

... retiring to pursue "personal interests in photography and ocean conservation."​

Winning!

 

[robbyx]

This is probably a good thing. I'm optimistic that they are taking Siri much more seriously with Giannandrea on board. I don't know that much about him, but Google is definitely doing some exciting work. Hopefully we'll see some "wow" moments with Siri in the near future like Google achieved with its phone call demos a few months ago. At any rate, I'm glad to see Apple realizing that they need an AI/ML chief. This gives me hope that Siri's days of being the village idiot might soon be over.

 

[mtneer]

Was this a "retirement" or was he shown the door for where Siri is after 8 years?

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

I bet if you ask Siri she won’t know he retired.

Me: "Find Tom Gruber"
Siri: "Who Dat?"

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Was this a "retirement" or was he shown the door for where Siri is after 8 years?

He had to ask Siri to show him a(n Apple) Map to the door and then try to go there.

They finally find him in the year 2261 still trying to find that door... completely mad... only able to mumble "here's what I found on the web for you"... and "REDRUM! REDRUM!"

 

[DocMultimedia]

The original Siri team got rich for good technology at the time, and stopped working on the day they were bought. Hopefully the new young/hungry team can get things moving again.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So blame 3 individual guys- 2 of which departed long ago- on the seemingly lack of much progress of Siri?

Is MacMini being many hundreds of days old because a few guys are too lazy to put in some new chips?

 

[TimmeyCook]

He can now go to work for Samsung's Bixby
[doublepost=1531970953][/doublepost]

Was this a "retirement" or was he shown the door for where Siri is after 8 years?

Apple hired Google's head of AI, does that respond to your question?

 

[PickUrPoison]

This is probably a good thing. I'm optimistic that they are taking Siri much more seriously with Giannandrea on board. I don't know that much about him, but Google is definitely doing some exciting work. Hopefully we'll see some "wow" moments with Siri in the near future like Google achieved with its phone call demos a few months ago. At any rate, I'm glad to see Apple realizing that they need an AI/ML chief. This gives me hope that Siri's days of being the village idiot might soon be over.

In hindsight I’m sure Cook wishes he’d never put Cue in charge of Siri. When Federighi took over last year, it didn’t take him long to realize they needed an expert to take it on.

They went and got “the guy”. A brilliant hire, of a brilliant man. And a guy who knows who the next dozen or hundred hires should be.

btw thanks for a relevant post, but we’ll be buried by the forum clowns.

 

[pat500000]

“I don’t understand.” -siri

 

[jonblatho]

As someone else said, I fully expect that getting the old guard out and Siri being under the oversight of Giannandrea will prove to be very, very good things.

WWDC might be pretty interesting in the ML space for the next couple years.

 

[Soccertess]

Siri checked out a long time ago!

 

[cmaier]

He had to retire. John McClane was gunning for him.

 

[rtomyj]

Siri will offer to look that up on the web for you... probably looping right back to this page.

Or perhaps look up something called TomGrouper and claim to not find anything.

Or perhaps show pictures of some guy named Tom with a catch of grouper fish.

Or since he's one of the creators, a Siri easter egg might proclaim him the greatest of guys who other guys want to be and girls want to meet.

I know I call this site MacMemes but you guys gotta price me wrong! Let’s not meme all over this ones great site.

 

[ipponrg]

Most of the original Siri developers had left, and there have been first hand accounts that said that Siri is nothing short of technical debt and was a mismanaged disaster after it was acquired. Whether or not Google's former head of AI can course correct is still debatable. Tom Gruber could only ride the gravy train for so long before Apple realized that they better fix this since they are pivoting on Siri to be an influential part of their success. Apple already has issues hiring people to help with Siri because frankly not many want to "fix" or deal with this mountain of debt.

Let's see what happens in a year with Siri. My expectation: it will be no different than it is today, and I still will be disabling it on all my Apple devices.

 

[Mansu944]

They should ask for like $5 back or something.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Siri is obviously not as good as Alexa or google assistant, however its ok. I have it activated on all my devices and it generally works well enough for basic things. I think I’ve gotten to know what it can and can’t do over the years so when I do use it it generally works. On a few occasions it actually surprises me and does something I didnt think it could do.

However with new people at the helm hopefully it will improve. On the phone I think its ok but it really needs to improve more on the HomePod. If it could just make calls and control my Apple TV better I’d be more inclined to pick up a second HomePod.

 

[patent10021]

Siri, did the door hit him on the way out or did he slam the door?

 

[pika2000]

People come and go. Not everyone can work forever with Apple. Heck, ask Rubinstein and Fadell.

Well, maybe Jonny Ive, but he got special power bestowed by Jobs.

 

[Frank Dalton]

At first glance I thought this was about PR spokesman John Gruber.

 

[yadmonkey]

Sure, Siri isn't as competent as Alexa or Google, but she also isn't data raping you. I like that part.

 

[noraa]

Unfortunately, Apple has put themselves in a really tough situation when it comes to AI/Siri. One of the major contributing factors to Google's, and to a lesser extent Amazon's, dominance in AI virtual assistants is the massive amount of data they collect on their users. While I have no doubt that the underlying technology behind Alexa and OK Google is definitely better than Siri - having a near endless pool of data to build upon really makes a big difference. Hopefully Apple will be able to course correct Siri to an extent, to at least make it competitive. However, unless Apple drastically changes their stance on privacy (which I not only doubt they'll do, I really DON'T want them to - I love Apple's stance on privacy), I just don't see them ever being able to match or surpass the abilities of OK Google and Alexa.

With all of that being said, we are seeing Apple making strides in making Siri more useful. One of the more intriguing aspects of iOS 12 is the tight integration with Workflow - specifically in how it can integrate directly with Siri. While this doesn't resolve the underlying issues with Siri, it does go a long way in adding more and useful functionality to Siri. As far as I know, and I could very well be wrong, neither OK Google nor Alexa allow the amount of find grained control of how you want your AI to work for you as Workflow does.