Vision Pro Creator Taking Over Siri After Apple Intelligence Setbacks

[Veinticinco]

Yes, they’re continuing to release tons of new features with each OS update, pump out content, partnering with companies to create 3D cameras, reportedly working with Sony on gaming controllers, and allegedly talking to sports leagues about 3D broadcasting rights. They wouldn’t be doing all of this if a $3500 device was the end all and be all of what they were going to release.

AVP is clearly step one, designed to ensure that there is a lot of content available when the price gets down to a mass-market level.

I get you're an avid AVP and honestly, I don't hate or even dislike the product by any means.

But you clearly have some bias here. Tons of new features? Pumping out content? It's a dribble and much of it redolent of demoware not finished product.

Agree it's a "step one" (I'd use the term prototype or proof of concept) but there's little financial motivation for devs to commit to a product that hasn't sold well, especially without robust reassurance there's an affordable 2nd gen on the horizon.

 

[DownUnderDan]

Shuffling the deck chairs to keep the share market happy. Nothing more.

 

[surferfb]

I get you're an avid AVP and honestly, I don't hate or even dislike the product by any means.

But you clearly have some bias here. Tons of new features? Pumping out content? It's a dribble and much of it redolent of demoware not finished product.

Agree it's a "step one" (I'd use the term prototype or proof of concept) but there's little financial motivation for devs to commit to a product that hasn't sold well, especially without robust reassurance there's an affordable 2nd gen on the horizon.

Don’t really disagree with anything you wrote here. But I do think all of it points to a vision 2.

 

[turbineseaplane]

And Teflon Craig survives yet again!

It's the Hair Force One mousse I think

 

[MacBH928]

Just buy Mistral

 

[007Spydie]

Apple is reportedly shaking up its executive ranks, shortly after it delayed the personalized Siri features that it previewed at WWDC last year.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell will be taking over the Siri team at Apple, which until now was led by Apple's artificial intelligence chief John Giannandrea. Apple CEO Tim Cook has apparently "lost confidence" in Giannandrea's ability to "execute on product development," but he will remain at the company for now to oversee artificial intelligence research and development in general.

Vision Pro hardware engineer Paul Meade will be succeeding Rockwell as the head of Apple's spatial computing efforts, allowing Rockwell to focus entirely on Siri, according to the report. In his new role overseeing the Siri team, Rockwell will report to Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, the report added.

Apple plans to inform employees about the executive shakeup this week, according to the report.

Apple has been facing a lot of criticism after delaying its more personalized version of Siri, with some people upset that the company chose to preview new features that were merely conceptual, rather than fully functional. It is a widely held belief that Apple is lagging behind competitors like OpenAI in the generative artificial intelligence space, and it looks like Apple is attempting to right the ship with this executive shakeup.

Apple appointing Rockwell as its new Siri head is an interesting choice, as the Vision Pro has been described as a "commercial flop" and has faced criticism of its own. Nevertheless, the Vision Pro is certainly a technological feat, so Rockwell has proven experience and could be instrumental in improving Siri's underlying technologies.

Apple said it anticipates rolling out the more personalized Siri "in the coming year."

Even the current version of Siri has attracted a lot of criticism, including from some of the most devoted Apple fans, as it sometimes struggles to answer even the most basic questions. Rockwell certainly has his work cut out for him in his new role.

Article Link: Vision Pro Creator Taking Over Siri After Apple Intelligence Setbacks

Siri is so terrible that I use ChatXPT for everything.

 

[Macaholic868]

When will Tim Crook be removed for failing as a CEO to recognize what was happening and right the ship before things got this bad?

 

[Johnstrass2]

IMO any issues with vision pro are about product/market fit not the actual polish of the product itself.

We already know people want voice assistants. They just need to make one that functions properly. Seems like if you can make the vision pro a reality, getting siri to tell me the weather correctly 100 times out of 100 should be a breeze.

Maybe one day we’ll be able to launch Siri or maps and say simply “ get me directions to the laundromat located on first Street in downtown Sarasota”. That should not be too hard to do.

 

[Johnstrass2]

Nice thinking... they are putting the responsible for a flop to deal with another flop because he's already a flop specialist

It’s not a flop

I hope someday there’s a psychologist to explain why there are so many haters for the Vision Pro.

If you actually own one you find it’s a wonderful device to have. I understand that not everybody has $5000 to spend for it, but it really is a marvel of physical engineering and software engineering. I’ve enjoyed mine from day one

 

[Johnstrass2]

The problem is the CEO.
it is not about Siri or Vision Pro.
Tim Cook’s Apple has worked while the inertia of what Steve Jobs left behind has continued to function. Tim Cook’s work at Apple wasn’t that difficult; he took the most magical and talented company in the world and his task was to segment and extract every possible euro from what Steve left behind.


But while Tim was satisfying the shareholders, there was no longer a genius or visionary wanting to create the best products on the market.


That era is over. A visionary is needed.
Maybe a crazy one

I would suggest that the Vision Pro is visionary. Visionary means a device that initially people see and they shrug their shoulders.l, but later can’t imagine living without

If you call the original Apple II was not a big success. The original Mac was not a big success. It took a lot of time for Apple to catch on.

Now, as for Siri, I don’t know what the heck anybody was thinking. It seems like Apple just decided to quickly jump on the bandwagon with “AI “ ( i’m still not sure how Apple defines AI) with it not even being close to ready.

How hard would it be implement a use functionality such s a command “hey Siri change my doctors appointment that I have on this coming Thursday and instead put it on for May 22 at 2 PM”

 

[Johnstrass2]

You just can't convince me that the way Tim was talking about "it's here" ... and him allowing himself to be photographed in it ... didn't mean that he thought this was his "iPhone moment"

Vanity Fair full spreads aren't things you do for v1 concepts meant to just "get something out there"

That's not who VF hits with

Definitely will have to agree to disagree on this one

To me this is egg on the face and folks have been, since then, trying to convince everyone Apple never even meant for this under cooked 1 egg omelette to be fed to anyone.

I'm just not buying it

Maybe you could think about the demographic of vanity fair. I don’t think it’s most people wandering through their suburban shopping malls who are the target audience for the vision

 

[lilkwarrior]

Vision Pro may have been a flop but that’s what happens when you bring a product that no one asked for to market. Technologically and engineering wise, the Vision Pro team delivered, something the Siri team under Giannandrea has been unable to do for over a decade.

The Vision Pro flopped by whom? Apple's success metrics is not mainstream sale figures for a prosumer device.

What Cook expressed for the product’s aims has been met: There’s yet to be a standalone prosumer headset anywhere close to the capabilities of the Vision Pro for well over a year.

It has moved the prosumer spatial computing market in a matter no other prosumer headset has yet to do.

Incumbents such as Meta (Quest Pro) and Microsoft (HoloLens) have yet to provide a serious alternative

 

[svish]

Good to know about the changes within Apple. Both Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence will not be taking off in the near future. Apple Intelligence and Siri will require a lot of work. For the Vision headset, a cheaper headset is very much required with a much wider availability.

 

[Johnny907]

People need to be fired.

 

[IIGS User]

This is totally inaccurate

You're conflating critical coverage and commentary with "hate"

Totally agreed.

No one here is critical because we hate Apple. I’m neither a fanboy or a hater. I’m a long time Apple user who has seen some excellent and innovative products that changed the way we work and play. Apple always seemed to be able to exceed our expectations and “wow” us.

We’re critical for exactly the opposite reasons. We see what Apple has been, and what it can be, and we’re disappointed.

We’re critical because we give a crap, not because we hate.

 

[FlyingDutch]

Hmm, not optimistic that Siri will change for the better considering Vision Pro hasn't been the glowing success it's said to be.

Vision Pro never was meant to be a commercial success, and its low sales numbers have nothing to do with its quality

 

[urnotl33t]

I work on an AI based product at my company. It's more in the role of assisting the user with automated tasks than in raw content creation, so it's mildly analagous to Apple Intelligence.

I often describe the LLM as "squishy" or liken it to a recalcitrant teenager who misunderstands what was asked, smarts off, or refuses to do what's asked. It's not deterministic like a piece of Python or Swift code. It's ...squishy... like trying to talk to a person.

It is really easy to put together a demo that works well, especially when people unconciously prompt in a way the AI understands. Then, when you release to the real world, and people use different phrasing or aren't specific about what they want, you get strange results. It's like the LLM tries to give a pleasing or placating answer, and if there's not enough to go on...that's when it hallucinates.

I deal with this all the time. It can take a lot of system prompt engineering to get something that delivers results to a wider audience. The effort to get all the prompting, and maybe even fine-tuning the model, correct can be a huge time sink compared to the coding.

Given that, I'm not surprised that Apple had a hiccup between demo and execution. And, I think they'll figure it out.

On the other hand, I'm an avid, daily Vision Pro user. Not all success is measurable by financial success. The Vision Pro is a technological marvel, and I think, a bit ahead of its time. More than a year later, I'm still in awe of the thing, realize it's got flaws, enjoying every improvement. Makes me feel like the Macintosh in 1984 again. Paul Meade taking over leadership on Vision Pro is a hint that development will go on.

I think we're too used to Apple hitting every ball out of the park. This isn't a failing company. This is a company that's facing reality. Not everything is a blockbuster. Apple is having its Cars 2 moment, and...look, Pixar is still making great movies, and a bad Pixar movie is still pretty darn good.

I’m in IT myself, but not AI, so I can follow your meaning. Great summary!

Based on what bits I’ve sent over the years, my best guess is that the issue with Siri is its fundamental underlying architecture. It, too, is inflexible and highly monolithic.

I wager they can’t “just” rebuild Siri (again) to back out the old architecture, rebuild for new clients, while still supporting existing clients. They want ultimate client side privacy, but they need to cede some of that to the back end architecture to make it “good-er”. They really are up against a wall here and they don’t want to make the hard cut.

I wouldn’t want to be in the room for those discussions! I bet the stress is palpable.

 

[Supermallet]

I think you should revisit chat bots, yes they still have some issues but it’s already worlds better than the early days.

Try googles Gemini live feature, it’s exactly what Siri should’ve been a while ago, and truly impressive.

No thanks

 

[The Doctor11]

No thanks

Well then you’re not in a particularly knowledgeable position to say LLMs are terrible.

 

[citysnaps]

When will Tim Crook be removed for failing as a CEO to recognize what was happening and right the ship before things got this bad?

That will happen when Apple's 2+ Billion active and repeat customers who love to purchase Apple products year after year after year (propelling Apple to being one of the most successful tech companies in the world), stop purchasing Apple products.

 

[Supermallet]

Well then you’re not in a particularly knowledgeable position to say LLMs are terrible.

Don’t worry, they’re terrible for many more reasons that have nothing to do with accuracy.

 

[oliverades]

I will say, I think the Vision Pro failing isn’t because of bad tech, design or functionality, it’s just a product category that people aren’t that interested in at a price point people can’t get behind. I think the success Mike Rockwell achieved in pushing his team to make a thing that works as well as Vision Pro does is notable, and if you give him a product that doesn’t have any of the baggage of such a niche, expensive piece of hardware, I think he could really succeed. Siri needs to have innovative tech that works really well and reliably, and that’s the one strength of the Vision Pro

 

[Expos of 1969]

I will say, I think the Vision Pro failing isn’t because of bad tech, design or functionality, it’s just a product category that people aren’t that interested in at a price point people can’t get behind. I think the success Mike Rockwell achieved in pushing his team to make a thing that works as well as Vision Pro does is notable, and if you give him a product that doesn’t have any of the baggage of such a niche, expensive piece of hardware, I think he could really succeed. Siri needs to have innovative tech that works really well and reliably, and that’s the one strength of the Vision Pro

However, Siri has more baggage than an airport carousel.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Totally agreed.

No one here is critical because we hate Apple. I’m neither a fanboy or a hater. I’m a long time Apple user who has seen some excellent and innovative products that changed the way we work and play. Apple always seemed to be able to exceed our expectations and “wow” us.

We’re critical for exactly the opposite reasons. We see what Apple has been, and what it can be, and we’re disappointed.

We’re critical because we give a crap, not because we hate.

Absolutely spot on -- and Apple is lucky to have this sort of interest.

The worst thing for them would be "apathy", where we just don't GAF and move on.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I hope someday there’s a psychologist to explain why there are so many haters for the Vision Pro.

You're looking for an MBA, not a psychologist