According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, Robby Walker, Apple’s top executive overseeing its Siri virtual assistant, told staff that delays to key features have been “ugly” and “embarrassing,” promising fixes with no timeline. Walker lamented that the decision to publicly promote the technology well before it had any chance of being ready made matters worse.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Walker, who serves as a senior director at Apple, delivered the stark comments during an all-hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said that it’s unclear when the enhancements will actually launch, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private.
The frank discussion shows the extent of Apple’s crisis in the field of artificial intelligence, where it’s struggling to catch up with peers. Siri — less advanced than rival systems — has become a symbol of Apple’s AI challenges. And the company’s woes boiled over last week, when it acknowledged publicly that critical features would be delayed indefinitely.
During the all-hands gathering, Walker suggested that employees on his team may be feeling angry, disappointed, burned out and embarrassed after the features were postponed. The company had been racing to get the technology ready for this spring, but now the features aren’t expected until next year at the earliest, people familiar with the matter have said…
[W]hen Apple demonstrated the features at WWDC using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype… “To make matters worse,” Walker said, Apple’s marketing communications department wanted to promote the enhancements. Despite not being ready, the capabilities were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials starting last year.
Apple touted the features as a key selling point of the iPhone 16 line, which otherwise lacked major changes.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has a Siri chief? And he’s still employed?
Wait, Siri has an actual “team” that’s supposedly “working” on it? Holy crap, we needed a good laugh! At least that’s one thing at which Tim Cook’s Apple rarely fails.
Forget, for a moment, about Apple’s false advertising, fraud, and lies about its Apple Intelligence vaporware. Short Bus Siri™ is roughly the same as it was the day it debuted on October 4, 2011. No, overhyped additional voices, cool glowing edges, and random icon refreshes don’t count.
We understood the original Siri’s voice perfectly on launch day. Ditto for its icon and animations. The problem is and has always been Siri’s inability to understand and be usefully conversant with its users.
Okay, now remember the Apple Intelligence vaporware false advertising, fraud, and lies. Those will be the basis for class action lawsuits from iPhone, iPad, and Mac customers soon enough. And Apple will deserve them all.
Walker also raised doubts about even meeting the current release expectations. Though Apple is aiming for iOS 19, it “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then,” Walker said.
Walker said that there is “intense personal accountability” about this effort shared by his boss John Giannandrea, the head of AI at Apple, as well as software chief Craig Federighi and other executives.
MacDailyNews Take: “Intense personal accountability,” but no real accountability. But, don’t worry, they’re really, really sad as they cash those six-figure checks.
Clearly, at Tim Cook’s Apple, you can fail spectacularly, year after year, as never face any consequences.
For how long would these failures have lasted under Steve Jobs?
Adam Lashinsky for Fortune, May 9, 2011:
In the summer of 2008… MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best.
Steve Jobs doesn’t tolerate duds. Shortly after the launch event, he summoned the MobileMe team…
“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”
For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,” he told them. “You should hate each other for having let each other down.” The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Walt Mossberg, the influential Wall Street Journal gadget columnist, had panned MobileMe. “Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us,” Jobs said. On the spot, Jobs named a new executive to run the group…
To Apple’s legion of admirers, the company is like a tech version of Wonka’s factory, an enigmatic but enchanted place that produces wonderful items they can’t get enough of. That characterization is true, but Apple also is a brutal and unforgiving place, where accountability is strictly enforced, decisions are swift, and communication is articulated clearly from the top. (After Jobs’ tirade, much of the MobileMe team disbanded, and those left behind eventually turned MobileMe into the service Jobs demanded.)
MacDailyNews Take: The contrast is stark. So are the results.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
I was always skeptical because I’m not even sure we WANT Siri to act like those fake videos showed. The level of information absorption and privacy-threatening access to all of my details made me concerned from the start.
Honestly I think no one yet knows how to make the right AI driven OS. It needs to be powerful but not take over, informed but not overreaching.
I expect Apple to continue to stumble in this area. In 2-4 years we’ll be in enough of a pickle that we’ll be willing to bring in a much younger new CEO… if they’ll be willing to come. It’s questionable to me whether Apple is still at the forefront of tech.
To apologize now for Siri’s AI deficiency presumptuously sidesteps the major deficiencies present from the Siri’s beginning. If Walker has been driving the Siri bus from the beginning, or for any length of time, he’s in the wrong position.
It’s an instructive picture to look back to the Apple Maps fiasco and how Forstall’s tenure ended just weeks afterwards its release, b/c of its deficiencies. Cook wanted him to apologize publicly, but he refused/quit. This sheds light of Cook’s pettiness and protecting his own turf? Why in the World have his standards gone so far astray with Siri? Why isn’t Walker ordered to write a public letter of shame and contrition, like Forstall?
Siri epitomizes AAPL’s confusion.
Forget Siri for a minute. Just bought a brand new “Magic” Mouse to use with my Apple MBP M3 Max. The scroll function magically doesn’t work. Even after multiple “fixes” and checking Apple support pages. Known issue, unresolved. Ironically, my “old” Lighting connector mouse still works perfectly, but I needed a second mouse at home, as I regularly work on projects at home.
Geez.
I never thought I’d see the day when an Apple peripheral doesn’t work out of the box with an Apple computer. I’m “only” on Sonoma because of my professional music software and gear, but we’re talking about a mouse, fer cryin’ out loud.
…and the charging port is still on the bottom. Dumb
Real artists ship.
Real companies don’t do “concept” vehicles (i.e. advertise products divorced from engineering laws, fiscal reality , or practical usability.)
The irony is the only tech that has actually gotten worse over the years is this website. It’s almost unusable now.
I really don’t care if Apple choose to put out vaporware samples that weren’t real, only because they are so woefully behind, it should have lit a fire under somebody’s collective butts!!!
But we have asleep at the wheel, not a visionary, Tim Cook running the show and he’s gonna kill Apple if he doesn’t get out sooner than later. He should really step down this year.
“ Promises fix someday “
WTF is that supposed to mean….
Does Tim see this as a Crisis at all ?
SIGH!
that’s clickbait, he didn’t say that
Hate to say I told you so, but it was always unlikely Siri could suddenly become smart after a decade of dumbness.
At least the stock rally sparked by the vaporware Apple Intelligence has corrected. Is it illegal or just unethical to tout nonexistent technology to drive sales and share prices?
“Decade of dumbness”
Excellent appraisal of Siri. It’s astonishing how dumb it is sometimes.
Talking about new products before they ship is a cardinal sin. This is a crystal clear sign that Apple marketing has lost its way and that the company is increasingly employing Bozo’s. It’s painful to watch. Companies have lifecycles similar to people’s. The only hope is for Johnny Ive’s exile at Love Inc to end with a triumphant return at Apple and a resumption of accountability and care. The company may just be too big to fix, though.
The return of “Jonnie” Ives would be a welcome announcement. But my gut feeling is the replacement of TC will be the ultimate DEI hire; more time will be spent celebrating the new CE0’s social justice significant then their actual vision, talent and leadership.
Remember when Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, used to say, “Under-promise and over-deliver?”
Apple doesn’t.
As an Apple stockholder, I did my part. Voted AGAINST Cook and the rest!! Unfortunately they are still there.
Apple needs a definitively “clean out house” top down. Period!!
Apple has lost its ability to lead because the company is increasingly prioritizing ideological hires over raw talent, promoting individuals into leadership roles who lack both vision and the discernment to distinguish between good and bad ideas. Just watch the last three keynotes—uninspired, formulaic presentations filled with talentless clones reading from teleprompters while making awkward hand gestures.
The warning signs of Apple’s leadership decline have been evident for years; it has just taken time for the consequences to materialize. While Apple still benefits from its legacy products and a deep history of innovation, the company seems directionless in emerging technologies. It’s like a once-great band that lost its songwriter—capable of playing the old hits but utterly uninspired when trying to create something new.
It’s disappointing to watch, and I hope time proves me wrong. While many companies have started rolling back their DEI-driven hiring practices, Apple has doubled down. As a result, true leadership at Apple no longer resides in product development or engineering—it now resides in HR.
Yes, there’s a problem, but I think many here enjoy this so that they can express their bigotry and personal biases. There’s always Windows, you here just to torture yourself and bash Cook?…
Siri is just as embarrasing as a mouse with the charging port on the bottom
Cook continues to let this happen.
Apple is not the problem, Cook is.
Umm, that mouse came out during Jobs tenure also remember the hockey puck mouse that came with the original iMac.
Yes but Cook let the mouse continue and has not kept up Siri
I’m gonna cut them some slack. Who knows what AI is supposed to do and with all the various bots out there, I don’t see it doing anything very well (e.g. error correction). Siri has always sucked, but who wants a listening Alexa? The one feature that helps it get “more intelligent”. With Apple’s privacy model (which I like) Siri had little chance of being better. The same goes for AI. Tell me who’s integrating it well because I sure haven’t seen it. Lastly, Jobs never fixed MobileMe. It’s predecessor iCloud still sucks and leverages others technology (Amazon). A home grown productivity suite like Google created with an open developer platform behind it would have made it a much better alternative than either MS’s 365 or G Suite, but those days are long past. We get what we got and march headlong into the next big thing when it comes to the zeitgeist’s appetite for Silicon Valley to make us all happy and more productive. This time more than ever the proverbial cart is far out front of the AI cart. Maybe. Just maybe Apple is in the best possible position after all still.