Apple's Siri history was plagued by infighting, mistakes and developer alienation, report ...

Posted:
in iOS edited March 2018
With dissatisfaction with Siri threatening to hurt various product lines now, several former employees on the Siri team have spoken out about blunders that took place during the rolling out of the technology back in 2011, as well as infighting and turf battles afterward.




According to a piece published Wednesday on technology site The Information, the company rushed Siri's technological development, leading to problems still being felt today. The account cited a dozen former Apple employees, all speaking anonymously as to avoid breaching confidentiality agreements.

Multiple sources told The Information that Apple "rushed Siri into the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully baked," leading to debates about "whether to continue patching up a flawed build or to rip it up and start from scratch."

Also alleged is that the Siri team leadership has been a revolving door, without any strong vision backing the product, and that the product's significant ambitions have been scaled down over time. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was cited as a reason for the confusion, as he spawned champions within the company that continued to advocate for the technology being done his way, even after the executive passed away the day after Siri was unveiled in October 2011.

The piece also reveals that a major breakdown of the software took place shortly after its launch. Further infighting led the technology's co-founders to leave Apple in the first couple of years of the product. Some of them founded a rival company, Viv Labs, but were later banned from Apple's campus, once brass realized they were continuing to visit Cupertino to play basketball with their former colleagues.

While Siri, due to the iPhone's ubiquity, is likely used by more users than Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant, it has failed to capitalize on developer innovation in the way that Alexa has. Many of the original Siri team had hoped Siri would lead to "an App Store for AI," but that never quite shook out that way. SiriKit was ultimately unveiled in 2016, even as Amazon eventually drew much greater developer interest.

Fallout from the infighting and confusion persists. As AppleInsider and other publications noted in HomePod reviews earlier this year, Siri functionality is "lacking" in the device, compared with Alexa and other competitors.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 65
    "The account cited a dozen former Apple employees, all speaking anonymously as to avoid breaching confidentiality agreements."

    To avoid breaching the agreement? Actually it's  to avoid getting caught breaching the agreement, since they all breached the agreement.
    racerhomie3StrangeDaystokyojimutdknoxStevenSterkmike1entropysanton zuykovmacxpressflashfan207
  • Reply 2 of 65
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,007member
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    dewmeStrangeDayspropodkevin keesmiffy31jony0freerange
  • Reply 3 of 65
    The oddest thing to me is Siri seems to have gotten dumber over the years with non sequiturs increasing. That could be confirmation bias, however.
    tokyojimubloggerblogstanhopepatchythepiratelarryarogifan_newaylkJonInAtljony0
  • Reply 4 of 65
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    Alexa still sucks.
    And people still use it for useless things like timers only.
    So I would say Siri is doing just fine.
    equality72521jbdragonlongpathmejsricgilly017watto_cobrasmiffy31jony0
  • Reply 5 of 65
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    "Former Apple employees". 

    Isn't is amazing how the the clickbait, hit-piece, troll magnet trash reports have come from former employees? yeah, let's all take these at face value. In this case, the report is highlighted by people fired 7 years ago, who clearly have zero clue or insight as to Siri's current development details. 

    Oh, and Siri has always worked fine for me, and it's only improved over time. Depends on everyone's use case, but for what use it for (basic info checks, timers, reminders, weather, scores, controlling my lights, etc) I've never had any real issue with it, apart from the periodic, universal imperfections of audio recognition and connectivity. Because of the infinite variabilities in accents and context, voice assistants will ALWAYS be limited until they can read your minds. Even if Alexa or Google are slightly better in some respects, I have no desire to introduce these ecosystems into my home. 
    edited March 2018 racerhomie3StrangeDaystdknoxequality72521mike1crossladpscooter63cornchipwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 6 of 65
    dtoubdtoub Posts: 18member
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Oh, this does indeed matter. Very much. And to deny it is to have one’s head in the sand and just be a cheerleader for Apple. Sorry but I like to think for myself. I rarely use Siri these days except to set an alarm or reminder. Too many times Siri is either “not available” or gets something totally wrong. I have a contact entry for a sushi restaurant and it’s even in my phone favorites. Yet all Siri does if I ask “Call Vic Sushi” is to pull up a web search that shows the restaurant’s web site. I don’t even bother to use Siri on my MacBook Pro since it seems even less capable than on my iPhone and iPad. At this point it’s a bad joke. I don’t have an Alexa or Google device but I am not hearing anything much that Siri does better and in some cases Siri falls far short. Maybe if Cupertino cared more about user experience than OS updates to add more emoji symbols things might be different. 
    edited March 2018 muthuk_vanalingambloggerblogfeudaliststanhopeatomic101[Deleted User]larryaSoli
  • Reply 7 of 65
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    dtoub said:
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Oh, this does indeed matter. Very much. And to deny it is to have one’s head in the sand and just be a cheerleader for Apple. Sorry but I like to think for myself. I rarely use Siri these days except to set an alarm or reminder. Too many times Siri is either “not available” or gets something totally wrong. I have a contact entry for a sushi restaurant and it’s even in my phone favorites. Yet all Siri does if I ask “Call Vic Sushi” is to pull up a web search that shows the restaurant’s web site. I don’t even bother to use Siri on my MacBook Pro since it seems even less capable than on my iPhone and iPad. At this point it’s a bad joke. I don’t have an Alexa or Google device but I am not hearing anything much that Siri does better and in some cases Siri falls far short. Maybe if Cupertino cared more about user experience than OS updates to add more emoji symbols things might be different. 
    Nope , it works fine for me.
    But I still do not use it for anything except timers & convertions.
    mike1pscooter63
  • Reply 8 of 65
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    Alexa still sucks.
    And people still use it for useless things like timers only.
    So I would say Siri is doing just fine.
    A few people that I work with love Alexa because they can ask the time while they lay in bed. We weren't talking in a group by the way. I had individual conversations with people that said the same thing. They love that they can lay in bed and ask the time. I was like... it takes more effort to speak than to just look at the clock? Ok then? hahaha
    mcdaveracerhomie3equality72521randominternetpersonpropodlongpathgilly017pscooter63macplusplusbluefire1
  • Reply 9 of 65
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Agree, this is all rudimentary and largely unfulfilling. We have a very long way to go to truly useful pattern recognition and contextual awareness. All parlor tricks right now, Amazon included. We’re in the very early days, like the original Macintosh GUI compared to today’s Macs. Let’s talk in twenty years!
    edited March 2018 tmayStevenSterkpropodgilly017pscooter63macplusplus
  • Reply 10 of 65
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    The oddest thing to me is Siri seems to have gotten dumber over the years with non sequiturs increasing. That could be confirmation bias, however.
    And the spellchecker has managed to go completely off the rails more than once for me. Bizarre non-word replacements, inexplicable capitalization... it has it all!
    king editor the gratebloggerblogAlex1N
  • Reply 11 of 65
    seankillseankill Posts: 566member
    dtoub said:
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Oh, this does indeed matter. Very much. And to deny it is to have one’s head in the sand and just be a cheerleader for Apple. Sorry but I like to think for myself. I rarely use Siri these days except to set an alarm or reminder. Too many times Siri is either “not available” or gets something totally wrong. I have a contact entry for a sushi restaurant and it’s even in my phone favorites. Yet all Siri does if I ask “Call Vic Sushi” is to pull up a web search that shows the restaurant’s web site. I don’t even bother to use Siri on my MacBook Pro since it seems even less capable than on my iPhone and iPad. At this point it’s a bad joke. I don’t have an Alexa or Google device but I am not hearing anything much that Siri does better and in some cases Siri falls far short. Maybe if Cupertino cared more about user experience than OS updates to add more emoji symbols things might be different. 
    Nope , it works fine for me.
    But I still do not use it for anything except timers & convertions.

    Siri sucks. I stopped using it completely because generally I would get annoyed after trying to make it work a second time, utlimately just doing it myself. 
    I had a much better experience with google now on an android which I used for a couple months. The voice recognition was pretty good.   
    ivanhatomic101patchythepirate[Deleted User]
  • Reply 12 of 65
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    As most here would not be subscribing (it's not cheap) here are a couple other pertinent excerpts:

    "Several former employees said (Apple) made a number of decisions that the rest of the team disagreed with, including a plan to improve Siri’s capabilities only once a year. That was the approach Apple typically employed with iOS... they argued in vain that that model was wrong for Siri, which they believed needed to be an online service that continuously improved, not updated annually... 

    "[Siri is] not in the search area,” Mr. Jobs said. “They’re in the AI area. … We have no plans to go into the search business. That's not something we know about. It's not something we care deeply about. Other people do it well.”

    Still, a quality search apparatus is a critical component to creating a useful digital assistant. When a user asks a question, the AI needs to tap into a source of knowledge and quickly identify the right response."


    Apple has of course made other purchases in the years since meant to bolster Siri capabilities.

    "In October 2013, (Apple) bought Cue for over $40 million... The startup had built a personal assistant app that searched through a user's emails to spit out a personal agenda.

    Apple made another big acquisition in 2013 by purchasing Topsy for more than $200 million. The Topsy technology was acquired to be used in Spotlight...

    The Topsy team ultimately grew into a massive organization... that now nearly rivals the number of employees on the Siri team.

    Members of the Topsy team expressed a reluctance to work with a Siri team they viewed as slow and bogged down by the initial infrastructure that had been patched up but never completely replaced since it launched.

    “There was a feeling that, ‘Why don’t we just start over and build what we need to build, and then worry about reconciling those two later?’”

    "Core Siri and Spotlight are powered by a combination of both Topsy's technology and Siri Data Services, which is based on older search technology ported over from iTunes search but modified for Siri and launched in 2013... Siri Data Services deals with things like Wikipedia, stocks and movie showtimes, while Topsy sorts through Twitter, news and web results. The Siri Data Services team was eventually lumped into the Topsy team... with the plan to integrate all of the tech into a single stack. But they're based on two different programming languages and are tricky to reconcile."

    "The difficulty integrating the search teams led to some embarrassing outcomes. Users could get completely different responses to the same question based on whether they were using Siri or Spotlight—which were powered by two different search technologies built by two different teams."

    In October 2015 (Apple acquired) VocalIQ. Apple has successfully integrated the VocalIQ technology into Siri's calendar capabilities, sources familiar with the project said.

    In a sign of how unprepared Apple was to deal with a rivalry, (the Siri team) didn’t even learn about Apple’s HomePod project until 2015—after Amazon unveiled the Echo in late 2014. One of Apple’s original plans was to launch its speaker without Siri included...

    But the most notable failure in Siri’s evolution is that it still lacks the third-party developer ecosystem considered the key element of the original Siri vision. Apple finally launched SiriKit in 2016 after years of setting aside the project .... Apple had been working on a developer kit off and on since 2012.

    So far it includes just 10 activities—Apple calls them “intent domains”—such as payments, booking rides, setting up to-do lists and looking at photos. Several senior engineers who worked on SiriKit have left Apple or moved off the project. 

    Among all these challenges, former Siri members noted that while Apple has tried to remake itself as a services company, its core is still product design. 

    “The structure of Apple works against those efforts”

    muthuk_vanalingamfreshmakerrandominternetpersonLukeCagepatchythepiratelarryacornchipequality72521jony0Alex1N
  • Reply 13 of 65
    tokyojimutokyojimu Posts: 528member
    SpamSandwich said:
    And the spellchecker has managed to go completely off the rails more than once for me. Bizarre non-word replacements, inexplicable capitalization... it has it all!
    Yeah, dictation is getting worse and worse. Just because the word “what” is often used at the beginning of a sentence where it’s capitalized doesn’t mean it should always be capitalized!

    And there seems to be no way to keep it from sticking Spanish words into my English writing just because I have the Spanish keyboard enabled. 
    ivanhpatchythepiratejony0Alex1N
  • Reply 14 of 65
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    seankill said:
    dtoub said:
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Oh, this does indeed matter. Very much. And to deny it is to have one’s head in the sand and just be a cheerleader for Apple. Sorry but I like to think for myself. I rarely use Siri these days except to set an alarm or reminder. Too many times Siri is either “not available” or gets something totally wrong. I have a contact entry for a sushi restaurant and it’s even in my phone favorites. Yet all Siri does if I ask “Call Vic Sushi” is to pull up a web search that shows the restaurant’s web site. I don’t even bother to use Siri on my MacBook Pro since it seems even less capable than on my iPhone and iPad. At this point it’s a bad joke. I don’t have an Alexa or Google device but I am not hearing anything much that Siri does better and in some cases Siri falls far short. Maybe if Cupertino cared more about user experience than OS updates to add more emoji symbols things might be different. 
    Nope , it works fine for me.
    But I still do not use it for anything except timers & convertions.

    Siri sucks. I stopped using it completely because generally I would get annoyed after trying to make it work a second time, utlimately just doing it myself. 
    I had a much better experience with google now on an android which I used for a couple months. The voice recognition was pretty good.   
    Google Now & Alexa are still useless & less popular than Siri
    longpathmacplusplus
  • Reply 15 of 65
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    dtoub said:
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Oh, this does indeed matter. Very much. And to deny it is to have one’s head in the sand and just be a cheerleader for Apple. Sorry but I like to think for myself. I rarely use Siri these days except to set an alarm or reminder. Too many times Siri is either “not available” or gets something totally wrong. I have a contact entry for a sushi restaurant and it’s even in my phone favorites. Yet all Siri does if I ask “Call Vic Sushi” is to pull up a web search that shows the restaurant’s web site. I don’t even bother to use Siri on my MacBook Pro since it seems even less capable than on my iPhone and iPad. At this point it’s a bad joke. I don’t have an Alexa or Google device but I am not hearing anything much that Siri does better and in some cases Siri falls far short. Maybe if Cupertino cared more about user experience than OS updates to add more emoji symbols things might be different. 
    I never have siri come back unavailable. I just asked her to call two of the restaurants I like and she was able to not only understand me, but make the call? I don't get how it seems that the reliability of SIRI swings so wildly from person to person... it's total novelty crap for , to it works just fine for me. I honestly don't use her all that much ( I use the Australian female voice ) but to make a call, text, set a timer or reminder I don't have issues. I will admit that if I use my watch it is sometimes very slow if my phone is in another part of the house, which can be annoying, but I wouldn't consider that a SIRI problem per say..
    longpath
  • Reply 16 of 65
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,275member
    slurpy said:
    "Former Apple employees". 

    Isn't is amazing how the the clickbait, hit-piece, troll magnet trash reports have come from former employees? yeah, let's all take these at face value. In this case, the report is highlighted by people fired 7 years ago, who clearly have zero clue or insight as to Siri's current development details. 

    Oh, and Siri has always worked fine for me, and it's only improved over time. Depends on everyone's use case, but for what use it for (basic info checks, timers, reminders, weather, scores, controlling my lights, etc) I've never had any real issue with it, apart from the periodic, universal imperfections of audio recognition and connectivity. Because of the infinite variabilities in accents and context, voice assistants will ALWAYS be limited until they can read your minds. Even if Alexa or Google are slightly better in some respects, I have no desire to introduce these ecosystems into my home. 
    My thoughts exactly. Well said.
    longpathjony0
  • Reply 17 of 65
    hexclockhexclock Posts: 1,243member
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Agree, this is all rudimentary and largely unfulfilling. We have a very long way to go to truly useful pattern recognition and contextual awareness. All parlor tricks right now, Amazon included. We’re in the very early days, like the original Macintosh GUI compared to today’s Macs. Let’s talk in twenty years!
    You got it right. Parlor tricks for now. I believe a paradigm shift in computing (quantum, spintronics,etc) will be necessary before computer intelligence approaches what people have come to expect. 
    As Doctor Who (the real one, Tom Baker) once out it, “Computers are very sophisticated idiots.”
    edited March 2018 robbyxcornchipmacplusplusjony0Alex1N
  • Reply 18 of 65
    thrang said:
    Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.
    Everyone seems to believe Amazon and Alexa have already won The World Series of Smartphone Assistants and Siri has come in last place, far, far behind. That's the mindset that everyone believes, so it might as well be true. You won't find many Youtube videos asking "Does Alexa suck?" No. There are plenty of videos asking "Does Siri suck?" As far as Wall Street is concerned, Alexa is the big winner and Siri is nothing but a bad joke. I just feel Apple could have done a lot better with Siri than let it become the laughingstock of smart assistants. As Apple fans were always laughing at how low Amazon profits were, Apple should probably have been using all of its profits to build Siri into a super-AI assistant. No company should sit on hundreds of billions of dollars and allow any product of theirs to become the worst in class. Amazon seems to be beating Apple in everything when there should never have been a good reason for something like that to happen.
    feudalistrobbyxafrodrilarryajony0muthuk_vanalingamAlex1N
  • Reply 19 of 65
    SendMcjakSendMcjak Posts: 66unconfirmed, member
    Agree with the sentiment that this "race" is just beginning -- I could GAF about Siri's current capability (or how it compares to Alexa or Google Assistant), but reports of "continued infighting" and "lack of vision" are concerning.
    randominternetpersoncornchip
  • Reply 20 of 65
    FranculesFrancules Posts: 122member
    With dissatisfaction with Siri threatening to hurt various product lines now, several former employees on the Siri team have spoken out about blunders that took place during the rolling out of the technology back in 2011, as well as infighting and turf battles afterward.




    According to a piece published Wednesday on technology site The Information, the company rushed Siri's technological development, leading to problems still being felt today. The account cited a dozen former Apple employees, all speaking anonymously as to avoid breaching confidentiality agreements.

    Multiple sources told The Information that Apple "rushed Siri into the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully baked," leading to debates about "whether to continue patching up a flawed build or to rip it up and start from scratch."

    Also alleged is that the Siri team leadership has been a revolving door, without any strong vision backing the product, and that the product's significant ambitions have been scaled down over time. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was cited as a reason for the confusion, as he spawned champions within the company that continued to advocate for the technology being done his way, even after the executive passed away the day after Siri was unveiled in October 2011.

    The piece also reveals that a major breakdown of the software took place shortly after its launch. Further infighting led the technology's co-founders to leave Apple in the first couple of years of the product. Some of them founded a rival company, Viv Labs, but were later banned from Apple's campus, once brass realized they were continuing to visit Cupertino to play basketball with their former colleagues.

    While Siri, due to the iPhone's ubiquity, is likely used by more users than Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant, it has failed to capitalize on developer innovation in the way that Alexa has. Many of the original Siri team had hoped Siri would lead to "an App Store for AI," but that never quite shook out that way. SiriKit was ultimately unveiled in 2016, even as Amazon eventually drew much greater developer interest.

    Fallout from the infighting and confusion persists. As AppleInsider and other publications noted in HomePod reviews earlier this year, Siri functionality is "lacking" in the device, compared with Alexa and other competitors.

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