Apple undergoes executive reshuffle to get AI back on track

[Daniel Puchert]

Apple appoints new Siri boss

Apple is undergoing a rare shake-up of its executive ranks, aiming to get its artificial intelligence efforts back on track after months of delays and stumbles, according to people familiar with the situation.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he’s moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell.

 

[Lupus]

They could I don't know, innovate? AI is a crock and over hyped.

 

[saor]

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he’s moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell.

It's like they don't realise most people don't really care about AI. Dunno, I don't use Apple so I've got no idea what the integration is like but AI is one of those things where I'll go to it on the odd occasion I need it - I don't need it heavily integrated into everything.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I think my bigger issue is that this is something we didn’t need to start with, and in the process of adding it things that used to work fine are now worse.

Besides Spotlight search being atrocious during this “transition” there are things that used to just do what you asked which now have an AI confirmation in the middle which is just annoying and a step backwards for consumers.

 

[bwana]

Besides Spotlight search being atrocious during this “transition” there are things that used to just do what you asked which now have an AI confirmation in the middle which is just annoying and a step backwards for consumers.

I haven't enabled AI but if you disable it does Spotlight return to normal?

I suppose I can see the appeal of AI to the lazy minded but it's seeping in everywhere these days.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I haven't enabled AI but if you disable it does Spotlight return to normal?

I suppose I can see the appeal of AI to the lazy minded but it's seeping in everywhere these days.

I think in some cases it should, but stuff like searching for battery in Settings and finding jack **** is baked in.

Similarly the Home integration and Siri asking you dumb questions it didn’t before is not part of Apple Intelligence as such but the upgrade of Siri gone wrong.

It’s very much a case of breaking perfectly working stuff in an attempt to make it all more clever and failing horribly at it.

Previously if I just spoke in my room and said “Hey Siri, play X” it would just automatically figure out which device I’m talking to and then start playing on my HomePod.

Now not only does it want me to confirm it’s Main Bedrook but does this on my iPhone where I manually need to confirm it on the screen…so it’s an entirely annoying and interactive experience now which was a simple single command before.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Interestingly while being on the farm with useless signal I’ve tested this again and searching for battery in Settings does actually get the expected results.

So this must be some kak going to the internet for no good reason and failing hard.

OR they fixed it since the latest 18.4 Beta release.

 

[konfab]

Ironic thing is Apple makes the best consumer hardware for LLMs.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1900958227048640747

I haven’t really used the Apple intelligence stuff tbh. It all was a bit gimmicky.

The value for generative AI really is at an organisation level. Not a consumer level. That is why Microsoft and Google are dominating in the sector.