Apple removes Siri from John Giannandrea, hands it over to Mike Rockwell

Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple is finally executing a shakeup of its failed executive ranks, aiming to finally condense its Apple Intelligence vaporware after months of delays and stumbles. CEO Tim Cook has belatedly lost confidence in the ability in John Giannandrea his chief of “AI Strategy” — of which Apple has demonstrably has very little, if any — to execute on product development, so he’s handing command of Short Bus Siri over to Vision Pro-creator Mike Rockwell. In a new role, Rockwell will be in charge of the company’s much-lampooned virtual assistant, Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg News, citing “people who asked not to be identified because the moves haven’t been announced.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri completely from Giannandrea’s command. Apple is poised to announce the changes to employees this week.
The moves underscore the plight facing Apple: Its AI technology is severely lagging industry rivals, and the company has shown little sign of catching up. The Apple Intelligence platform was late to arrive and largely a flop, despite being the main selling point for the iPhone 16.
The need to rescue Siri is especially urgent. The company has struggled to release new features that were announced last June, including the ability to tap into a user’s data to fulfill queries. Despite the technology not being ready, Apple advertised the enhancements for months on TV in order to sell the iPhone 16.

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last Friday:
The Apple Intelligence vaporware [is] 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.
Gurman continues:
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By tapping Rockwell, Apple is betting on an executive with proven technical experience. He has demonstrated the ability to ship new products and run an engineering organization with thousands of people. Rockwell has a knack for solving problems and often takes the role of evangelist for futuristic technologies.
Rockwell is known as the brains behind the Vision Pro, which is considered a technical marvel but not a commercial hit… He is now moving away from the Vision Pro at a time when that unit is struggling to plot a future for the product…
Giannandrea will remain at the company, even with Rockwell taking over Siri. An abrupt departure would signal publicly that the AI efforts have been tumultuous — something Apple is reluctant to acknowledge…
Inside Apple, Rockwell hasn’t been shy about criticizing Siri, according to people familiar with the matter. For years, he has pitched senior vice presidents on ideas for overhauling the voice assistant to make it more personalized. He has also been advising the AI group in recent weeks. Even before the management changes, Giannandrea long considered Rockwell a potential successor.

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MacDailyNews Take: Imagine how much time Apple could save if Tim Cook simply read our Takes and promptly followed along instead of being at least a year late.
But, hey, better late than never (which ought to be Apple’s motto under Tim Cook, not counting AirPower, Apple Car, etc.).
Apple pays and has been paying John Giannandrea, Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, millions upon millions of dollars for years. WTF of any import does he really do? WTF of any import has he really delivered? Have you used Siri lately? Yup, it’s still a steaming pile of dogshit.
Where’s Apple’s generative AI, John? “Too hard; too late; look for partners; gimme my paycheck and stock options.”
AAPL shareholders need to start asking real questions of these executives, especially those who are supposedly in charge of Apple’s “AI Strategy,” when the company clearly has none. How about some accountability for once? – MacDailyNews, March 18, 2024

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