Hmm….so who was responsible for this? Who decided it should be in the WWDC demo? Federighi? Product marketing?
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Report Reveals Internal Chaos Behind Apple's Siri Failure
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Hmm….so who was responsible for this? Who decided it should be in the WWDC demo? Federighi? Product marketing?
Sounds like these class actions might come with some subpoenas.
Perhaps Apple has evolved into too many technology products and have simply "exhausted" their R&D development teams. Designing and updating so many hardware and software specific areas is extremely challenging. Microsoft has "dabbled" with hardware but never to the extreme that Apple has. MSFT's focus has always been on OS, Apps, and now AI. Maybe it's time for Apple to refocus and divest some of their ancillary products.
A multi-model approach is the only one that will work in the long term. LLMs excel at different tasks and should be applied accordingly.
They're seldom discussed, but IBM's watsonx is the only platform doing this alongside a private data partition and would be a viable option for Apple's AI woes.
They're seldom discussed, but IBM's watsonx is the only platform doing this alongside a private data partition and would be a viable option for Apple's AI woes.
This was a problem LONG before ChatGPT. Many years ago, I considered writing an email to Tim Cook because it was clear that eventually competitors' superiority in regard to Siri was going to become a "siri"ous problem. As Alexa, Google, etc were becoming increasingly capable, Siri was becoming a joke in equal measure. That should have been Apple's first warning to get cracking. It was clear that as the other assistants became more powerful, it could sway buying decisions. Anyone could see from the movie HER how valuable a voice assistant could be. I didn't take out the time to send that email, and I regret it. I don't think it would have changed anything, but it would be nice to have it now just to show, "hey, I tried to warn y'all."
It's pretty obvious that Siri became low-to-no priority, having never really advanced much beyond its introduction. I understand that its development might have been hampered by Apple's privacy stance - and I'm grateful for those protections, but they really needed to find some way around that limitation rather than just shrugging and moving on.
On the plus side, I think Craig Federighi gets it, and I'm hopeful there's still an opportunity for Apple to catch up to a meaningful degree before this leaves them in serious trouble. (Deepseek is proof that work can be done quickly in the AI space.) When Tim cook does step down, I'm really hopeful they hand over the CEO reigns to Federighi. We shall see.
(Oh, and P.S. I wouldn't ignore quantum computing or robots either if I was Apple, speaking of potentially disruptive tech.)
It's pretty obvious that Siri became low-to-no priority, having never really advanced much beyond its introduction. I understand that its development might have been hampered by Apple's privacy stance - and I'm grateful for those protections, but they really needed to find some way around that limitation rather than just shrugging and moving on.
On the plus side, I think Craig Federighi gets it, and I'm hopeful there's still an opportunity for Apple to catch up to a meaningful degree before this leaves them in serious trouble. (Deepseek is proof that work can be done quickly in the AI space.) When Tim cook does step down, I'm really hopeful they hand over the CEO reigns to Federighi. We shall see.
(Oh, and P.S. I wouldn't ignore quantum computing or robots either if I was Apple, speaking of potentially disruptive tech.)
Indeed, Giannandrea came from Google, but he was never trained to think the Apple way. One of the reasons Apple worked so well for so long is because it thought different — a mindset Steve Jobs instilled deeply in the company. That way of thinking shouldn’t be assumed; it must be taught. If Apple wants to keep its soul intact, it needs to train new people in the culture that made it great.
Want a version that’s sharper, more emotional, or more formal?
Goodness, that is really sad. My confidence that the personal context features will be ready this year is practically zero now.
I've heard the privacy/silo-ing among teams is so
But it doesn't. Constantly I'm asking it to text or call X person, and it will ask me if I want to use their Apple ID or their phone number to text or call them. These are all family members with iPhones who use iMessage. Does it matter if I use Apple ID or phone number to text these individuals? Don't they go to the same place? And then its hard to tell it which I want to select, especially my wife's contact it rattles off like five email addresses.
Constantly I'm asking Siri for directions somewhere and it doens't consider my current location as a "context clue" - giving me directions to some place hours away with a similar name.
I'm frequently pulling over to the side of the road to just do what I need to on my phone instead of using Siri because its still so damn inconsistent after 13-14+ years.
The only time I need Siri is in the car and it never has the outcome I'm looking for.
But it doesn't. Constantly I'm asking it to text or call X person, and it will ask me if I want to use their Apple ID or their phone number to text or call them. These are all family members with iPhones who use iMessage. Does it matter if I use Apple ID or phone number to text these individuals? Don't they go to the same place? And then its hard to tell it which I want to select, especially my wife's contact it rattles off like five email addresses.
Constantly I'm asking Siri for directions somewhere and it doens't consider my current location as a "context clue" - giving me directions to some place hours away with a similar name.
I'm frequently pulling over to the side of the road to just do what I need to on my phone instead of using Siri because its still so damn inconsistent after 13-14+ years.
The only time I need Siri is in the car and it never has the outcome I'm looking for.
In case you weren’t aware.
I always use the British voices, male and female. I also have my phone refer to me as Exhalted Lord Master. It has a particularly nice ring with a British accent.
If I were Apple I'd sack off the whole project. Only a third of Apple users actually engage with Siri on any level and those that do use it to set reminders and timers, not have a conversation. We have humans for that. Keep Apple Intelligence as it is, a set of OS-level features designed as a force multiplier for other apps. I'd quite like to see rewrite baked into iCloud.com, for example and the object removal tools to be better.
At the same time, flip the narrative on its head with a 'Made by a Human On a Mac' campaign designed to showcase the human story at the centre of creativity. The narrative should not be why Apple is not for AI but rather why other companies are not for humans. They did a great job turning Google's data harvesting against them in the marketing; now do the same with AI generated slop.
At the same time, flip the narrative on its head with a 'Made by a Human On a Mac' campaign designed to showcase the human story at the centre of creativity. The narrative should not be why Apple is not for AI but rather why other companies are not for humans. They did a great job turning Google's data harvesting against them in the marketing; now do the same with AI generated slop.
I think this goes a good bit deeper than live vs pre-recorded keynotes.
This is all likely a result of senior leadership prioritizing the appeasement of large shareholders over delivering reliable and polished products and services.
The bigger question is does the market care? You haven't seen The New York Times or The Guardian running any front page stories on Apple's mess of Siri because it is not deemed newsworthy. The only people flipping out are a few forums on the internet that have frankly drank too much of the Kool Aid, as the americans say.
It is, in reality a non-issue not stopping anyone buying Apple products.
The problem with Apple is they have enormous data that can't be mined for LLM or ML Training etc, without breaching the security promises they made earlier! They never were good in data mining and making sensible data out of very large amounts of data like Amazon, Google, Meta etc...Even Microsoft is not good in this except one area (Which is related to enterprise services). Also, their speech-to-text with varying accents & languages is nowhere near the competitors. Unfortunately, these are not Apple's core competency areas but have become popular ones for the consumers and the market. This cannot be achieved in house even within 5 years of strenuous efforts. Like Microsfot focusing on the enterprise market, Apple may need to be satisfied with supporting App developer market in the ecosystem and nothing beyond, try to milk as much as possible through Apple Tax.
Such a fuss over something the average user couldn't care less about.
They're only falling behind if you deem LLMs to be ahead. Google Gemini can do all sorts of cool **** and yet people are not voting with their wallets. That is to say that the average person in the street doesn't care about what AI things their phone can do. Mismanagement on Apple's part, absolutely but the reason it went on so long is because Siri is an afterthought.
If this part is true, that’s incredibly low for any company, let alone Apple. I’m sure there’s some technical reason why it’s “not”, but this feels like false advertising.
Was the goal to show what they had planned or was it to more or less lie to inflate the stock prices as well as making it seem they are keeping up with the competition, at least externally, with Google, Amazon, OpenAI, Microsoft, etc.
I’m not doom-and-glooming here. But I do think if the above is true, it’s very uncharacteristic of Apple and should embarrass them and trigger a change internally - which seems to be the case
This is what happens when Apple employees live without the fear of Jobs screaming at them for not delivering.
Apple definitely has the benefit of playing in the fourth quarter, and has a massive war chest it can deploy to assist. I am not worried about Apple falling behind right now, because as you correctly point out, most users don't use AI yet and it's not actually a selling point, and worse case scenario they can buy Perplexity or Mistral and be fine from a "Chat Bot" POV.
However, what I do worry about is developers/power users leaving Apple because they do use AI and if the tools aren't there (particularly Xcode) then the pace of development will slow dramatically in the long term. Moving forward, young people are going to expect AI tools, and Apple needs to be a valid option for them. If they aren't, Apple will be in real trouble moving forward.
Reminds me of the book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma” — here’s an overview of it, per Google:
The Innovator's Dilemma, written by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, explores why successful companies can struggle to adapt to new technologies and market entrants. The book's central argument is that established companies' own success can hinder them, as they focus on optimizing existing models and customers, and may miss disruptive innovations.
The Innovator's Dilemma, written by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, explores why successful companies can struggle to adapt to new technologies and market entrants. The book's central argument is that established companies' own success can hinder them, as they focus on optimizing existing models and customers, and may miss disruptive innovations.
They have shifted to not care about iOS anymore since everyone just buys anyway. They have become the new Intel, software-wise. Fat, lazy and ignorant. As opposed to their hardware team which seems to knock it out of the park time after time.
This is really, really bad. Somebody kept hitting SNOOZE on the alarm about 25 times...Hello??? Wake up!!! It's 2pm! It makes me wonder if Apple execs even use their products other than their shiny precious iPhones and laptops. I have to imagine if Tim Cook had a dozen or so paired large HomePods and mini HomePods in his 10,000 square foot home in La Quinta, CA he would have put an end to the Siri nonsense long ago...Songs randomly pausing (Apple Music or HomePod issue?), Siri constantly asking "Who's speaking?", Siri putting random crap on your shopping list because she doesn't understand simple requests, Siri saying "I'll speak louder" when you ask her to increase the volume on a song you like. The list goes on and on. It results in an experience that is full of friction and frustration rather than amazement and joy. Apple, you need to do better.
A new report from The Information today reveals much of the internal turmoil behind Apple Intelligence's revamped version of Siri.
Apple apparently weighed up multiple options for the backend of Apple Intelligence. One initial idea was to build both small and large language models, dubbed "Mini Mouse" and "Mighty Mouse," to run locally on iPhones and in the cloud, respectively. Siri's leadership then decided to go in a different direction and build a single large language model to handle all requests via the cloud, before a series of further technical pivots. The indecision and repeated changes in direction reportedly frustrated engineers and prompted some members of staff to leave Apple.
In addition to Apple's deeply ingrained stance on privacy, conflicting personalities within Apple contributed to the problems. More than half a dozen former employees who worked in Apple's AI and machine-learning group told The Information that poor leadership is to blame for its problems with execution, citing an overly relaxed culture, as well as a lack of ambition and appetite for taking risks when designing future versions of Siri.
Apple's AI/ML group has been dubbed "AIMLess" internally, while employees are said to refer to Siri as a "hot potato" that is continually passed between different teams with no significant improvements. There were also conflicts about higher pay, faster promotions, longer vacations, and shorter days for colleagues in the AI group.
Apple AI chief John Giannandrea was apparently confident he could fix Siri with the right training data and better web-scraping for answers to general knowledge questions. Senior leaders didn't respond with a sense of urgency to the debut of ChatGPT in 2022; Giannandrea told employees that he didn't believe chatbots like ChatGPT added much value for users.
In 2023, Apple managers told engineers that they were forbidden from including models from other companies in final Apple products and could only use them to benchmark against their own models, but Apple's own models "didn't perform nearly as well as OpenAI's technology."
Meanwhile, Siri leader Robby Walker focused on "small wins" such as reducing wait times for Siri responses. One of Walker's pet projects was removing the "hey" from the "hey Siri" voice command used to invoke the assistant, which took over two years to achieve. He also shot down an effort from a team of engineers to use LLMs to give Siri more emotional sensitivity so it could detect and give appropriate responses to users in distress.
Apple started a project codenamed "Link" to develop voice commands to control apps and complete tasks for the Vision Pro, with plans to allow users to navigate the web and resize windows with voice alone, as well as support commands from multiple people in a shared virtual space to collaborate. Most of these features were dropped because of the Siri team's inability to achieve them.
The report claims that the demo of Apple Intelligence's most impressive features at WWDC 2024, such as where Siri accesses a user's emails to find real-time flight data and provides a reminder about lunch plans using messages and plots a route in maps, was effectively fictitious. The demo apparently came as a surprise to members of the Siri team, who had never seen working versions of the capabilities.
The only feature from the WWDC demonstration that was activated on test devices was Apple Intelligence's pulsing, colorful ribbon around the edge of the display. The decision to showcase an artificial demonstration was a major departure from Apple's past behavior, where it would only show features and products at its events that were already working on test devices and that its marketing team had approved to ensure they could be released on schedule.
Some Apple employees are said to be optimistic that Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell can turn Siri around. Federighi has apparently instructed Siri engineers to do "whatever it takes to build the best AI features," even if that means using open-source models from other companies in its software products as opposed to Apple's own models.
For more details on Apple's Siri debacle, see The Information's full report.
Article Link: Report Reveals Internal Chaos Behind Apple's Siri Failure
I thought that the overheating was caused by a hardware GPU issue they didn't catch in time. Still inexcusable, but more on the hardware team IMO.
Yup, and he needs to do his job to correct for it. It does seem like Apple is taking steps. But, it may be time for new eyes at the top.