Apple’s Siri team to do “whatever it takes” to make Apple Intelligence the best it can be
Apple now runs the world’s most extensive network of AI
There may yet be hope for Apple Intelligence as Apple’s AI teams have been instructed to “do whatever it takes” to build the best artificial intelligence features as new Siri team leaders, Craig Federighi, Mike Rockwell, and other A-listers from the crack Apple dev teams get involved.
Smart things need smart decisions
That instruction extends to using open-source models rather than Apple’s own self-created versions, if necessary.
These decisions follow what seems to be years of focus on the wrong things, internal conflict, and confused decision making in the teams, according to a highly interesting report in The Information.
That report reveals a host of interesting insights into the journey to AI at Apple:
At one point the company was working with both on-device and cloud-based LLM engines to deliver GenAI to Siri. Dubbed Mini Mouse and Mighty Mouse, engineers were in full flow when a sudden change in decision took place, and the company had to pivot to cloud AI alone. This was one of a series of changes of direction that created a lack of purpose and direction in the teams.
Poor leadership meant that Siri was continually passed between teams with no key improvements made, even as employees apparently got into infighting over things like pay, promotions, vacations and so on. (To my mind, the fact this is mentioned in the report suggests a petty, inward-facing culture, which I’m pretty certain top management aren’t at all happy has evolved).
The report also talks about how some projects that could have been exciting were shelved while small projects that arguably didn’t make a huge amount of difference got progressed. It even discusses an exciting sounding spoken user interface for VisionOS that never got completed – including voice commands to do things like resizing windows, controlling apps, navigate the web – everything I want to be able to do in spatial computing.
What a surprise…
Finally, the report tells us that the impressive feature demo of contextual intelligence Apple showed at WWDC “came as a surprise” to Siri team members who had never seen these capabilities. The only bit the report claims they had seen was the pulsing Siri at the edge of the display.
All the same, despite the chaos and the court case, you, me, and they all know that at this point in time, the tech bros got to work it out.
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