Siri shake-up (again)

[Cmaier]

Apple trying again to figure out how to get Siri not to suck.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-20/apple-vision-pro-chief-mike-rockwell-named-siri-head-giannandrea-keeps-ai-role

Apple puts Vision Pro creator in charge of Siri as Apple Intelligence rollout falters - 9to5Mac

Apple is shaking up its executive team in light of ongoing struggles to roll out advanced Apple Intelligence features for...

9to5mac.com

Gurman: Tim Cook Has Put Mike Rockwell in Charge of Siri, Reporting to Craig Federighi

Link to: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-20/apple-vision-pro-chief-mike-rockwell-named-siri-head-giannandrea-keeps-ai-role

daringfireball.net

 

[fooferdoggie]

mas how many years has siri sucked? it's like a record.

 

[Cmaier]

mas how many years has siri sucked? it's like a record.

it’s gotten worse over time. It used to be able to answer simple questions like “what month is it?” Last night I asked it “turn on the lights in our bedroom” and it turned on the lights in both my bathroom and bedroom, even though these are two different rooms in homekit. It used to know better.

 

[fooferdoggie]

it’s gotten worse over time. It used to be able to answer simple questions like “what month is it?” Last night I asked it “turn on the lights in our bedroom” and it turned on the lights in both my bathroom and bedroom, even though these are two different rooms in homekit. It used to know better.

yep I tell it to do something and its making a phone call. our dumb balls often get it wrong or cant tell its my wife speaking even though we have set it over and over again to recognize her.

 

[swk9]

The Creator of Siri: "Make your prototype magic" - UC Berkeley Sutardja Center

“We launched a free app in the app store and 2 weeks later we get this call… ‘Heeeey it’s Steve, whatcha doin’? Wanna come over to my house tomorrow?'” Adam Cheyer on how Apple acquired Siri Adam Cheyer is the creator of Siri, Bixby, Viv Labs, Change.org, and Sentient. Billions of people have...

scet.berkeley.edu

He must be really good since he managed to sell his voice assistant creation to both Apple(Siri) *and* Samsung(Bixby).

It still feels odd how strong the voice assistance fever pitch was when Amazon was giving away so many Alexas. Those voice assistant devices were supposed to change how we would interact with technology and Amazon's ecosystem was supposed to dwarf everyone else's since Alexa was so open. Then turns out it was mostly just a house of cards.

As overhyped as the current LLM AI scene is, the capability and the use case are so much better than those old assistants, which now feels like just a bunch of if statements duct taped together.

 

[thenewperson]

It still feels odd how strong the voice assistance fever pitch was when Amazon was giving away so many Alexas.

Voice First was quite a time yeah.

 

[Yoused]

A Siri shake-up is obviously Stolichnaya, Islay (single malt), Rémy (Martin) & ice, properly shaken up.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Apple trying again to figure out how to get Siri not to suck.

Worried what happens if they get it to stop sucking and it blows instead.

 

[dada_dave]

Apple’s AI dilemma: A crisis of trust, timing, and technological ambition

Apple's AI ambitions have hit a wall, with repeated delays and an underwhelming rollout of promised features like the Siri overhaul. While rivals push forward, Apple’s AI strategy seems tangled in internal struggles and cautious execution, raising doubts about its ability to compete in the...

www.notebookcheck.net

I’m in pretty good agreement* with this author, which I think Gruber also echoed. The first problem is that Apple panicked. Them being “behind” right now in AI isn’t actually an issue. Most AI systems even if “operational” are more hype than useful and aren’t driving sales for anyone. Rushing the announcement may have satisfied some idiot investors who want to see AI everywhere but it’s a black eye now. Apple doesn’t have to be first (or even second or third) and doesn’t have to rush.

*some notes of disagreement are that I had are that I think Apple’s collection of party tricks are closer to where AI actually is and therefore not having a narrative now is okay. If the field is to become more than an investor sinkhole, the field needs much better (not just bigger) models and then you can have a more cohesive vision based on its actual capabilities.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Apple’s AI dilemma: A crisis of trust, timing, and technological ambition

Apple's AI ambitions have hit a wall, with repeated delays and an underwhelming rollout of promised features like the Siri overhaul. While rivals push forward, Apple’s AI strategy seems tangled in internal struggles and cautious execution, raising doubts about its ability to compete in the...

www.notebookcheck.net

I’m in pretty good agreement* with this author, which I think Gruber also echoed. The first problem is that Apple panicked. Them being “behind” right now in AI isn’t actually an issue. Most AI systems even if “operational” are more hype than useful and aren’t driving sales for anyone. Rushing the announcement may have satisfied some idiot investors who want to see AI everywhere but it’s a black eye now. Apple doesn’t have to be first (or even second or third) and doesn’t have to rush.

*some notes of disagreement are that I had are that I think Apple’s collection of party tricks are closer to where AI actually is and therefore not having a narrative now is okay. If the field is to become more than an investor sinkhole, the field needs much better (not just bigger) models and then you can have a more cohesive vision based on its actual capabilities.

The short term outlook of market investors/traders is the biggest detriment to quality of product and longevity of companies imo. I often wish Apple went private when they had a chance.

 

[dada_dave]

The short term outlook of market investors/traders is the biggest detriment to quality of product and longevity of companies imo. I often wish Apple went private when they had a chance.

It depends right? A huge percentage of the 2010's was debt fueled growth by investors of streaming services and gig companies like Uber that they knew would take awhile to profit from and similarly they know AI isn't going to deliver massive profits in the short term but they're betting it's not so long termthat they can keep dumping money into it and they'll eventually get it back (and that the profits from those companies that survive will be massive) or at least pass the bag to the next holder.

That said, it is also a case of chasing trends where most of these people have no idea what these companies are actually doing or what the technology actually entails but they *believe* (partly because everyone else believes). And yes of course beyond trend chasing, short term quarterly focus is definitely a problem - hell HFT is how many micro transactions you can make in a second never mind actual company/stock value and that's real reason why a lot of money is being poured into Quantum computing.

I laugh when I see people still talking about Wall Street or the VC scene as some sort of rational actor - even in the slightly twist variant of "rational" that economists use. It is a combination of a herd mentality with gambling, over the long term of course the market as a whole (tends to) go up. But, I still see people with a straight face saying things like "you'd be laughed out of Wall Street if you presented a plan like that" as though that was insult given not only all the stupid shit investors pumped untold billions into and of course all the things that initially struggled.

I'm not sure if going fully private is a good thing either, until now Apple was fairly resistant to investor pressure. But they definitely hit the panic button on this one, and almost certainly unnecessarily.