Though Apple by no means succeeded in pulling off the mythic “Apple Automotive,” a number of stories recommend that the analysis, improvement, and engineering experience it acquired from Venture Titan isn’t going completely to waste. With a full self-driving automotive now not on the roadmap, Apple has reportedly pivoted to non-public robotics.
Not lengthy after insiders reported on the cancellation of the Apple Automotive in early 2024, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that in-home robotic units can be Apple’s subsequent moonshot mission. “Engineers at Apple have been exploring a cell robotic that may comply with customers round their properties,” Gurman reported. Nonetheless, he added that Apple plans to start out a bit smaller, with “a sophisticated table-top house system that makes use of robotics to maneuver a show round.”
If these stories are correct, that preliminary entry will possible take the type of a sophisticated house hub — one thing that may comply with a extra modest iPad-like hub that’s anticipated to reach later this 12 months or early subsequent. Nonetheless, that’s anticipated to be a primary step right into a a lot bigger world of Apple-powered private robots.
Very similar to the Apple Automotive, which turned a synthetic intelligence mission in its waning years, Apple’s private robotics have been below the management of the senior VP John Giannandrea, who heads up Apple’s Machine Studying and AI Technique division. Venture Titan spent its first a number of years in a cloistered {hardware} engineering division and presumably shifted to AI to good the self-driving elements (which by no means occurred).
Nonetheless, now it appears that evidently private robotics is shifting in the other way, shifting to {hardware} engineering. In response to Gurman, it is going to be positioned below the management of John Ternus, who heads up that division.
Apple plans to relocate the robotics crew from John Giannandrea’s AI group to the {hardware} division later this month, in line with individuals with information of the transfer. That can place it below Senior Vice President John Ternus, who oversees {hardware} engineering, stated the individuals, who requested to not be recognized as a result of the change isn’t public.
Mark Gurman
There’s no perception into which of Ternus’ lieutenants can be main Apple’s robotics ambitions or if it’ll nonetheless be headed up by Kevin Lynch, the well-known Apple Watch VP who was reassigned to the Apple Automotive crew in 2021. Nonetheless, it’s a transfer that appears to make sense on the floor. {Hardware} is arguably the place robotics belongs, but it surely’s unclear if it’s merely a logical shift or if the transfer was prompted by Giannandrea’s failure to ship the Siri Apple Intelligence enhancements the corporate promised for iOS 18.
Siri was handed over to Giannandrea in late 2018, shortly after the previous Google senior government joined Apple to move up its new AI division. By early 2019, Apple’s newly minted senior VP was shuffling Siri crew members round to refocus the voice assistant on long-term analysis. The information made everybody optimistic about Siri’s future, however not a lot has modified within the intervening six years. If something, Apple Intelligence has made Siri worse.
Earlier this 12 months, Apple discovered itself embroiled in a minor scandal, at the very least amongst Apple followers, when it formally delayed the extra personalised Siri enhancements it had promised at its 2024 Worldwide Builders Convention (WWDC). Whereas Apple would by no means admit this publicly, Apple analysts mirrored on the dearth of any hands-on demos of the characteristic, concluding it was possible vaporware, and a number of other inside sources revealed that the corporate “barely had a purposeful prototype” when it unveiled the brand new Siri at WWDC. In different phrases, what Apple confirmed final June was nothing greater than an idea video.
It wasn’t lengthy after these revelations that information broke that Apple was reassigning Siri to its software program engineering division, below the senior management of senior VP Craig Federighi, with the mission being immediately headed up by Mike Rockwell — the particular person answerable for taking the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional from idea to market. Rockwell additionally shortly introduced in a couple of different heavy hitters from his Imaginative and prescient Professional crew, a “dream crew” with a confirmed observe document of delivering outcomes.
Giannandrea’s failure to make Siri prepared for prime time has reportedly shaken Tim Prepare dinner’s confidence in his capacity “to execute on product improvement,” Gurman reported earlier this 12 months. It’s additionally reportedly held again Apple’s first house hub, which isn’t a robotics mission, however was anticipated to be the precursor for the “desk high robotic.”
Private robotics might have been in Giannandrea’s division just because that’s the place it was left sitting when the Apple Automotive mission was wound down. Nonetheless, it’s additionally not the one crew inside Apple engaged on robotics. Gurman notes that there’s already a {hardware} engineering crew engaged on robotics in Ternus’ division below the direct management of executives Matt Costello and Brian Lynch (no relation to Kevin, so far as we all know), who additionally deal with sensible house applied sciences.
Merging the AI robotics into the identical division that handles {hardware} robotics appears affordable, however Gurman provides that it’s “additionally notable as a result of it provides Ternus management over key AI working system and algorithms groups, teams not sometimes managed by the {hardware} engineering division.”
That takes one other space of accountability away from Giannandrea, but it surely additionally frees him as much as do the issues that he could also be finest at. Sources have stated that when Giannandrea was heading up AI at Google, he was seen as much more of a theoretician or a “professor.” His experience clearly doesn’t lie in bringing merchandise to market, however he seemingly has a powerful basis in machine studying analysis.
Somebody nonetheless has to construct the underlying fashions that energy Apple Intelligence, Siri, and different machine studying and AI initiatives, and Giannandrea’s group will reportedly focus almost all of its time on that now, with out the distraction of turning them into tangible merchandise.
Nonetheless, it stays an open query how lengthy Apple’s Machine Studying and AI Technique division will live on. “Eight years after combining Apple’s AI groups right into a single group with the rent of Giannandrea, a breakup of the AI and ML crew is trying extra possible,” Gurman’s sources stated.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]