Apple taps Vision Pro boss to save Siri

Apple is tapping the mastermind behind the Vision Pro to fix its biggest headache: Siri.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Mike Rockwell, the executive who led Vision Pro development, is taking over AI and Siri leadership from John Giannandrea. Giannandrea will lose control of the Siri team, while Paul Meade, who ran hardware engineering under Rockwell, will step up to head the Vision Pro group.

A leadership shakeup after an internal crisis

The shakeup comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly "lost confidence" in Giannandrea's ability to steer the company's AI efforts.

Earlier this month, Apple admitted to Daring Fireball that generative AI upgrades for Siri are delayed until "the coming year" because development is taking "longer than we thought." Bloomberg also reported on a tense internal meeting where senior director Robby Walker bluntly described the current AI situation as "ugly."

Why it matters

For everyday Apple users, this confirms that the conversational, context-aware Siri promised with Apple Intelligence won't arrive anytime soon. You are stuck waiting until next year at the earliest.

Cook turning to Rockwell suggests Apple views its AI troubles as an execution failure rather than a research deficit. Rockwell proved he can deliver mind-bogglingly complex hardware, but software and large language models move on completely different cycles. Bringing an aggressive hardware manager into an algorithm-heavy team is a high-risk gamble, and it reveals just how desperate Apple has become to close the gap with its competitors.