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    What the heck is going on at Apple?

    (www.cnn.com)
    148 points methuselah_in | 39 comments | 07 Dec 25 16:54 UTC | HN request time: 1.284s | source | bottom
    1. skeeter2020 ◴[08 Dec 25 02:17 UTC] No.46187567[source]▶
    3 retirements and a VP taking an obvious promotion at Meta: not really the "sky is falling" event they try to paint. Tim Cook stepping down would (if it even happens) be a big deal, but he's not the heart of the company. He's been an extremely compentent accountant; enjoy your retirement party and gold watch. And to suggest they are falling behind because they're not investing hundreds of billions in an AI "strategy" that shows no pay-off - while the other tech companies start to scale back their capital investments? I've never been a huge Apple fan as a company but their current situation makes me more bullish than ever.
    replies(8): >>46187739 #>>46187848 #>>46188046 #>>46188258 #>>46188571 #>>46192753 #>>46193216 #>>46195995 #
    2. an0malous ◴[08 Dec 25 02:43 UTC] No.46187739[source]▶
    Yeah it seems pretty obvious that we’re in the mainframe era of transformer models and we’ll soon transition to the personal computer era where these all run on your device, which Apple stands to benefit from the most. Their FoundationModels are actually pretty good at certain tasks
    replies(1): >>46187951 #
    3. tptacek ◴[08 Dec 25 03:03 UTC] No.46187848[source]▶
    There also seems to be a general vibe of cheerfulness among Apple fans about Dye's departure.
    replies(1): >>46188104 #
    4. Hammershaft ◴[08 Dec 25 03:26 UTC] No.46187951[source]▶
    I don't think that's obvious. The marginal return on additional units of compute seems to fall pretty quickly for the vast majority of applications, which increases the benefit of decentralization over the cost of reduced compute. It isn't clear the same is true of intelligence.
    5. NBJack ◴[08 Dec 25 03:43 UTC] No.46188046[source]▶
    Perhaps the sky already fell a while back?

    I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon, but Siri seems to have stagnated. The big "Apple Intelligence" capabilities of the iPhone 16 haven't exactly landed. The Vision Pro seems to be on at least a partial depreciation path.

    The only real innovation I've seen in the last decade has been the M line of chips. Mind you, these are undeniably really good; but even that hasn't changed the market share that much (though it is going up and trending well).

    replies(4): >>46188139 #>>46188191 #>>46188608 #>>46196026 #
    6. trueno ◴[08 Dec 25 03:53 UTC] No.46188104[source]▶
    i don't really care about dye (or liquid glass) but i do feel like it's an alarm of sorts that Srouji stated he'd probably take off without tim cook at the helm. I dunno what that signals, i'm less inclined to think it's a "i just really like tim, man" and more of a "this incoming leadership can get bent". Apple also just picked up the meta lady that helped draft the patriot act. i dunno. What remains to be seen is whether or not Apple maintains its core tenets or if they start slipping on things like privacy, ads, and forcing AI in everyone's face. They undoubtedly leave a buttload of money on the table never pursuing these things. whole shakeup feels like it was driven by wall street earlier in the year, there were headlines about apple being in serious trouble for missing out on AI. I dunno feels like some game of thrones opportunism within apple leadership just played out. apple fans are dorks in that they think such a shakeup is in response to liquid glass and the iphone air being a boring phone. i like apple devices, this is kinda freaky i can't lie. it would actually suck if their chip division started stalling if srouji bounces, it would suck infinitely more if a new leadership was here to redefine apple values and suddenly we have a proverbial apple version of satya nadella at the helm who's here to blast you with ads and subscriptions and forced AI.
    7. raw_anon_1111 ◴[08 Dec 25 03:59 UTC] No.46188139[source]▶
    Yes Siri has stagnated. But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports.

    Siri could be better if Apple just threw 10000 monkeys at it and configure it more phrases (utterances) to match on.

    replies(1): >>46188296 #
    8. keyle ◴[08 Dec 25 04:09 UTC] No.46188191[source]▶
    Personally I prefer a useless Siri that I can turn off, rather than a copilot into everything I cannot turn off.

    I am perfectly fine with Apple lagging behind in "AI".

    replies(2): >>46188282 #>>46196797 #
    9. tebnaklop ◴[08 Dec 25 04:20 UTC] No.46188258[source]▶
    > Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, who is joining Meta as its chief design officer.

    If this person had any role to play in the user interface decisions of macos Tahoe, then good riddance.

    replies(2): >>46188458 #>>46189435 #
    10. aydyn ◴[08 Dec 25 04:25 UTC] No.46188282{3}[source]▶
    Wouldnt you prefer a competent Siri that you can turn off?

    Gemini on android just works. I can ask it nearly anything in spoken natural language and it'll talk back with an answer.

    replies(7): >>46188437 #>>46188585 #>>46188619 #>>46188666 #>>46188731 #>>46188732 #>>46189691 #
    11. aydyn ◴[08 Dec 25 04:26 UTC] No.46188296{3}[source]▶
    > But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports.

    Link to reports? As far as I understand, google assistant is being deprecated in favor of gemini.

    replies(1): >>46188539 #
    12. dmonitor ◴[08 Dec 25 04:44 UTC] No.46188437{4}[source]▶
    Siri can answer questions just fine. It's the "doing stuff" that introduces complications
    13. acdha ◴[08 Dec 25 04:46 UTC] No.46188458[source]▶
    He did, along with a lot of earlier decisions. The underlying problem is that neither he nor Jony Ive had experience doing user interface design—Ive was a hardware designer, and Dye was the packaging guy—so they kept making things which looked good in demos and the screenshots on boxes, but aren’t usable and flagrantly violated Apple own Human Interface Guidelines in ways which weren’t just “we tried to do something innovative” but more like “I never knew this concept in someone else’s field existed”.

    There’s a bit more here but I think this opens the possibility of actual UX professionals fixing decisions without the problem of having to avoid saying their boss made a mistake.

    https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/12/in-a-major-coup-for-someo...

    https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job

    I would worry if I worked at Facebook since their VR work is likely to get the same “looked awesome in the demo” demands which will push the hardware budget and lower usability.

    replies(1): >>46192558 #
    14. raw_anon_1111 ◴[08 Dec 25 04:59 UTC] No.46188539{4}[source]▶
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/gemini-is-an-increas...

    This is a little older. I know things improve a lot quickly.

    https://www.slashgear.com/1521993/google-gemini-ai-replace-s...

    15. jimbokun ◴[08 Dec 25 05:03 UTC] No.46188571[source]▶
    Calling Tim Cook an extremely competent accountant is an extreme understatement.

    He’s maybe the most competent accountant of all time, given how far he’s brought Apple.

    replies(1): >>46192901 #
    16. happymellon ◴[08 Dec 25 05:05 UTC] No.46188585{4}[source]▶
    I use the phone voice assistants to set timers, and call people when I'm driving.

    It is objectively worse at calling people than Assistant was. If I ask you to call someone, don't come up with a scolling list of phone numbers that I have to pick from. At least Assistant called the primary designated number for someone, Gemini just froze and wouldn't take voice commands to pick the number but forced my to pick up my phone.

    I turned that bullshit off a couple of days after they forced it on me without asking.

    17. trueno ◴[08 Dec 25 05:11 UTC] No.46188608[source]▶
    > I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon

    it actually turned out to be the greatest boon in the milky way for me: joe consumer, apple device user.

    been watching the copilot saga (in my head the lore is that this is clippy hes back and hes pissed everyone treated him like buttcheeks over a decade ago) over on windows & new samsung fold phones (which look really cool) having no way to fully disable that stuff and man.. i dunno im gonna be kind of pissed if this whole shakeup is just a move to make apple start doing that same shenanigans (please no)

    18. SXX ◴[08 Dec 25 05:12 UTC] No.46188619{4}[source]▶
    How is Gemini on iPhone is diffetent though? Do you really use AI as assistant on the phone for anything other than fancy way to set an alarm clock?

    I mean not for looking up the information, but for something that alter how you use phone.

    19. bigstrat2003 ◴[08 Dec 25 05:20 UTC] No.46188666{4}[source]▶
    > Gemini on android just works.

    Unless you want to turn it off, which I haven't been able to figure out how to do. Every now and then my phone will randomly prompt me to "ask Gemini", which is really annoying. When I want to use the LLM, I will go to it, stop shoving it in my face over and over.

    replies(1): >>46192855 #
    20. FridgeSeal ◴[08 Dec 25 05:31 UTC] No.46188731{4}[source]▶
    I can count on one hand, the number of times where I have gone “gosh, I so wish my voice assistant was better”.

    It queues up music correctly, and picks the right destination on maps in my car. 98% use case satisfied. Would I like it to be better? Don’t really care. Is it a purchasing point? Nope. Would I miss it if it disappeared tomorrow? Also nope.

    replies(1): >>46191525 #
    21. stephenr ◴[08 Dec 25 05:32 UTC] No.46188732{4}[source]▶
    I use Siri for about four or five things:

    - setting a timer; - sending a text; - starting a call; - adding an item to a shopping list; - playing/controlling music (very occasionally);

    Siri does all of these with 95% accuracy. Occasionally it mishears "15 minutes" as "50 minutes" if I'm rushed or something.

    You use the device however it works for you, but I truly cannot comprehend the use case of a voice assistant beyond these type of tasks.

    More complex tasks would likely require more concentration on the response/result, at which point I shouldn't need to do it hands free.

    replies(1): >>46193078 #
    22. wpm ◴[08 Dec 25 07:28 UTC] No.46189435[source]▶
    Alan Bye!
    23. Xiol ◴[08 Dec 25 08:15 UTC] No.46189691{4}[source]▶
    Is the answer correct?
    24. signatoremo ◴[08 Dec 25 12:35 UTC] No.46191525{5}[source]▶
    A better voice assistant is a major selling point for me. I need glasses to use my phone. Messages, email, purchases, directions, constantly. A good voice commands would be godsend. Siri doesn’t work very well
    25. hshdhdhj4444 ◴[08 Dec 25 14:24 UTC] No.46192558{3}[source]▶
    The more worrying aspect is that the Apple leadership continued with Dye even as he kept pushing terrible interfaces. In fact, according to all reports, they seem distraught by this move which indicates they aren’t really in alignment with the broader ecosystem that didn’t like Dye’s output at all.
    replies(1): >>46193317 #
    26. SwtCyber ◴[08 Dec 25 14:42 UTC] No.46192753[source]▶
    I think people are reacting less to who left and more to when
    27. nutjob2 ◴[08 Dec 25 14:51 UTC] No.46192855{5}[source]▶
    Just turn off Google Assistant stuff. It's always been annoying and useless to me and I've always turned it off.
    replies(1): >>46198933 #
    28. nutjob2 ◴[08 Dec 25 14:55 UTC] No.46192901[source]▶
    You make it sound like Cook does everything at Apple.

    His job has been to keep the train rolling and on the tracks. He's very competent at that but the slow atrophy of Apple shows he's not doing anything more than that.

    Apple was doing great before he became CEO and it'll do great after he leaves.

    replies(2): >>46194861 #>>46196462 #
    29. enos_feedler ◴[08 Dec 25 15:08 UTC] No.46193078{5}[source]▶
    Apple’s analytics probably support this which is exactly why siri still sucks. But ya, everyone will continue to think they somehow know better and apple is wrong and poorly executing
    replies(1): >>46197255 #
    30. QuantumGood ◴[08 Dec 25 15:20 UTC] No.46193216[source]▶
    He's also a very competant politician vis-a-vis governments, according to Warren Buffet many years ago
    31. acdha ◴[08 Dec 25 15:26 UTC] No.46193317{4}[source]▶
    Agreed. It suggests they were swayed by demos more than using their own products, which is scary. Using iOS 26 makes me wonder if Cook even uses an iPhone or has an assistant do everything - it’s not unusable but there are so many little glitches which would’ve had Steve Jobs chewing out an entire room full of managers.
    32. jasomill ◴[08 Dec 25 17:13 UTC] No.46194861{3}[source]▶
    While Cook isn't a product visionary, and never pretended to be, he's also not a mere caretaker: before he was CEO, he was responsible for the design and implementation of Apple's global supply chain and manufacturing operations as they exist today.

    To torture your analogy, he designed and built the tracks and related infrastructure that kept Jobs' trains running on time.

    Delivering products to customers, as you may recall, was always as important to Jobs as the design of the products themselves.

    33. giancarlostoro ◴[08 Dec 25 18:41 UTC] No.46195995[source]▶
    Tim Cook is a safe CEO who should have stayed a COO. I like Tim but I think what Apple needs is someone like Tim as COO and a visionary the way Steve Jobs was a visionary. For all his flaws he paved the way to where Apple is today.
    34. giancarlostoro ◴[08 Dec 25 18:43 UTC] No.46196026[source]▶
    > Siri seems to have stagnated

    This is what bothers me about most voice assistants, I think maybe the Amazon one finally got an upgrade to modern LLM capabilities? I don't know about the Google one.

    I assume the cost is too high, but I don't expect ChatGPT / Grok / Claude level of knowledge from a voice assistant LLM, if they can run a drastically small enough model that doesn't cost an arm and a leg at scale, I would be okay with that. Definitely would have to cache some of the responses when viral events happen.

    35. jimbokun ◴[08 Dec 25 19:22 UTC] No.46196462{3}[source]▶
    Part of the reason Apple was doing great before he became CEO is because Tim Cook was the COO. A huge part of their success was getting good deals on the non standard parts they needed at massive scale.

    Not sure there was a clear better candidate for CEO after Jobs died.

    36. mscbuck ◴[08 Dec 25 19:55 UTC] No.46196797{3}[source]▶
    I still feel like they are in an incredible position when it comes to AI because of their hardware integration/advantage across all of their devices. I think they see immense value in getting things on-device and not having to rely on any of these other companies.
    replies(1): >>46197382 #
    37. stephenr ◴[08 Dec 25 20:32 UTC] No.46197255{6}[source]▶
    > which is exactly why siri still sucks

    It probably does what most people need it to do, so it sucks?

    That's some interesting logic to say the least.

    38. bigyabai ◴[08 Dec 25 20:42 UTC] No.46197382{4}[source]▶
    When it comes to AI, there's ~5 trillion dollars of datacenter revenue Apple could be competing for, but isn't. That's not good.

    Now, maybe it would be justifiable if there were great local AI experiences on iPhone, or an easy $5 trillion to be made elsewhere. Until then, Apple is bleeding money hand-over-fist by refusing to sign the CUDA UNIX drivers and sell the rackmount Mac as a cutting-edge TSMC inference box. The Grace superchip is absolutely eating Apple's ARM lunch right now.

    39. couscouspie ◴[08 Dec 25 23:07 UTC] No.46198933{6}[source]▶
    I can't turn it off on my Samsung Galaxy S23 which I originally bought, because it was not marketed with AI. The patched it in later and ever since it just randomly starts as if it was listening all the time.