Apple Head of Home Services departs after two-year tenure

AppleInsider

Apple's Home Services chief has departed after spending two years leading smart home projects for the Cupertino tech giant.

Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

Sam Jadallah, whose official job title was Head of Home Services, announced that he had left Apple in a LinkedIn post over the weekend.

"That's a wrap with Apple," he wrote. "I'm so grateful for the friendships that will endure and the opportunity to shape and create new capabilities for people and homes around the world."

Jadallah added that he was excited to head back into the "Silicon Valley ecosystem." He lists his current position on LinkedIn as "Investor, Independent Board Director."

Apple hired Jedallah back in 2019 to lead its smart home efforts and the development of HomeKit. Prior to joining Apple, he worked as the CEO of a smart lock company and also spent time as a corporate vice president for Microsoft in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the two years since he was hired, Apple has pushed a number of smart home initiatives under Jedallah's watch. That includes support for the Thread standard, working with other technology companies on Matter, and introducing new HomeKit features.

Recent reports have suggested that Apple engineers are pessimistic about the future of the Apple TV. Together with the HomePod, Apple's home hardware has lagged behind competitors like Amazon and Google. However, the next evolution of Apple's home strategy could be a combination of the HomePod and Apple TV.

It isn't clear how Jadallah's departure from the company will affect that strategy, or whether it's related to the Apple TV pessimism among Apple engineers.

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MacsWithPenguins

I’m guessing he found a more thrilling job at Google or Amazon, a natural next step after being at both Microsoft and Apple.

9secondkox2

Cool. Maybe now we will see some cohesive HomeKit stuff. 

citpeks

Apple has squandered the lead it had with Siri and HomeKit.

Both have languished, and lag behind Google's and Amazon's efforts.

Instead, the company still treats the Apple TV like a hobby, if not some sort of disease to be avoided, and offered users an expensive smart speaker whose best feature is sound quality; nice but not exactly the top priority for a smart speaker.  The market reacted predictably.  A smaller, more affordable version might be more attractive, but hardly breaking any new ground.

And that's it.

Meanwhile, users who want IoT products that are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem find themselves as second class citizens, lacking the same variety of choice and pricing that competitors like Google and Amazon provide.

Occasionally, a promising product that does feature HomeKit is announced, and ships on time, but many are also delayed, or never have their promise of HomeKit compatibility fulfilled (looking at you, Ring, but you're not alone).

The IoT market is worth hundreds of billions, but for reasons unknown, Apple executives are happy to let others dominate, and not do more to ensure Apple users have a similar level of options, except with the polish, and privacy-oriented design that they expect.  Not a speaker or camera whose mission includes helping a company compile a data profile of your habits, in order to send you more ads, and have you buy more stuff.  Where did the vision go?  Where is the plan?

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets like autonomous driving vehicles (which are still a long way to being commonplace) and AR (the 3D glasses of the 21st Century).

Puzzling.

ionicle

citpeks said:

Apple has squandered the lead it had with Siri and HomeKit.

Both have languished, and lag behind Google's and Amazon's efforts.

Instead, the company still treats the Apple TV like a hobby, if not some sort of disease to be avoided, and offered users an expensive smart speaker whose best feature is sound quality; nice but not exactly the top priority for a smart speaker.  The market reacted predictably.  A smaller, more affordable version might be more attractive, but hardly breaking any new ground.

And that's it.

Meanwhile, users who want IoT products that are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem find themselves as second class citizens, lacking the same variety of choice and pricing that competitors like Google and Amazon provide.

Occasionally, a promising product that does feature HomeKit is announced, and ships on time, but many are also delayed, or never have their promise of HomeKit compatibility fulfilled (looking at you, Ring, but you're not alone).

The IoT market is worth hundreds of billions, but for reasons unknown, Apple executives are happy to let others dominate, and not do more to ensure Apple users have a similar level of options, except with the polish, and privacy-oriented design that they expect.  Not a speaker or camera whose mission includes helping a company compile a data profile of your habits, in order to send you more ads, and have you buy more stuff.  Where did the vision go?  Where is the plan?

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets like autonomous driving vehicles (which are still a long way to being commonplace) and AR (the 3D glasses of the 21st Century).

Puzzling.

Pretty much this, but im hoping now he has been given the boot he will be replaced by someone who is eager and keen to grow this area while still focusing on privacy

goodbyeranch

citpeks said:

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets

I'm fine with discontinued speakers, so-so siri and iffy support for lightbulbs if the tradeoff is M1 Pro Chips, AR/VR and a car.

Tried both homepods. I'd rather wear my iPod Max. As for siri, I don't really care for talking to my devices. Just got rid of all of my wifi lightbulbs because the functionality is just a novelty and configuring them again whenever my power blinks out isn't worth the hassle.

StrangeDays

citpeks said:

Apple has squandered the lead it had with Siri and HomeKit.

Both have languished, and lag behind Google's and Amazon's efforts.

Instead, the company still treats the Apple TV like a hobby, if not some sort of disease to be avoided, and offered users an expensive smart speaker whose best feature is sound quality; nice but not exactly the top priority for a smart speaker.  The market reacted predictably.  A smaller, more affordable version might be more attractive, but hardly breaking any new ground.

And that's it.

Meanwhile, users who want IoT products that are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem find themselves as second class citizens, lacking the same variety of choice and pricing that competitors like Google and Amazon provide.

You continue to not understand what the original HomePod was (and wasn't) -- it was a high-end wi-fi speaker, that used voice as one controller input. It was not a smart speaker. I know this seems crazy to people used to cheapie Alexa speakers, but there actually was/is an entire product category just for AirPlay wi-fi speakers. I bought one that was more expensive and did less. So buying two of the original HPs was a no-brainer for me. They're great, and provide a nice base that my other scattered minis lack when doing whole-house music. I had an expensive 7.1 home theater system (Gallo Acoustics) prior and have no plans to return to it.

As for IoT devices, I have a household full of 'em. I limit myself to HomeKit-enabled stuff because that's the only level of security I trust. Somehow I've managed to acquire outlets, switches, lighting, sensors, etc... 

StrangeDays

ionicle said:

citpeks said:

Apple has squandered the lead it had with Siri and HomeKit.

Both have languished, and lag behind Google's and Amazon's efforts.

Instead, the company still treats the Apple TV like a hobby, if not some sort of disease to be avoided, and offered users an expensive smart speaker whose best feature is sound quality; nice but not exactly the top priority for a smart speaker.  The market reacted predictably.  A smaller, more affordable version might be more attractive, but hardly breaking any new ground.

And that's it.

Meanwhile, users who want IoT products that are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem find themselves as second class citizens, lacking the same variety of choice and pricing that competitors like Google and Amazon provide.

Occasionally, a promising product that does feature HomeKit is announced, and ships on time, but many are also delayed, or never have their promise of HomeKit compatibility fulfilled (looking at you, Ring, but you're not alone).

The IoT market is worth hundreds of billions, but for reasons unknown, Apple executives are happy to let others dominate, and not do more to ensure Apple users have a similar level of options, except with the polish, and privacy-oriented design that they expect.  Not a speaker or camera whose mission includes helping a company compile a data profile of your habits, in order to send you more ads, and have you buy more stuff.  Where did the vision go?  Where is the plan?

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets like autonomous driving vehicles (which are still a long way to being commonplace) and AR (the 3D glasses of the 21st Century).

Puzzling.

Pretty much this, but im hoping now he has been given the boot he will be replaced by someone who is eager and keen to grow this area while still focusing on privacy

Where does it say he was fired, versus quit?

StrangeDays

goodbyeranch said:

citpeks said:

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets

I'm fine with discontinued speakers, so-so siri and iffy support for lightbulbs if the tradeoff is M1 Pro Chips, AR/VR and a car.

Tried both homepods. I'd rather wear my iPod Max. As for siri, I don't really care for talking to my devices. Just got rid of all of my wifi lightbulbs because the functionality is just a novelty and configuring them again whenever my power blinks out isn't worth the hassle.

You're doing something wrong if you have to reconfigure your lights after a power outage. HomeKit lights don't work that way at all... You add the devices to your home, define scenes in the Home app, set schedules, and then they run. EOS. My power goes out more often than I'd like (power company sucks) and at no point do I have to re-configure them in any way.

goodbyeranch

StrangeDays said:

goodbyeranch said:

citpeks said:

Meanwhile, money and resources are plowed into big, risky bets

I'm fine with discontinued speakers, so-so siri and iffy support for lightbulbs if the tradeoff is M1 Pro Chips, AR/VR and a car.

Tried both homepods. I'd rather wear my iPod Max. As for siri, I don't really care for talking to my devices. Just got rid of all of my wifi lightbulbs because the functionality is just a novelty and configuring them again whenever my power blinks out isn't worth the hassle.

You're doing something wrong if you have to reconfigure your lights after a power outage. HomeKit lights don't work that way at all... You add the devices to your home, define scenes in the Home app, set schedules, and then they run. EOS. My power goes out more often than I'd like (power company sucks) and at no point do I have to re-configure them in any way.

I'm doing nothing wrong. If the wind causes a transformer to go in and out rapidly like they did a few weeks ago its as if the bulbs were manually re-set by rapidly turning them on and off three times. While there's a lot to like about Texas, the power grid is not one of them. And when I leave the state, I wont be getting more LED bulbs. Cute but I can do without.