Siri cofounder leaves Apple, report says [u]

Siri co-creator and Vice President of Engineering Adam Cheyer has left Apple, reports Bloomberg's Jon Erlichman.

Update: Sources with knowledge of the matter told All Things D that Cheyer left Apple in June to pursue other projects.

The publication cites three people familiar with the situation, each confirming that Cheyer is no longer working at Apple. The engineer was most recently attached to the iPhone maker's mobile software division and marks the second such departure from a former Siri executive, the first being Dag Kittlaus, another co-founder who took leave after the iPhone 4S was announced in October 2011.

Cheyer worked on the voice-recognition software Siri leverages to give accurate results from normally-worded questions instead of forcing users to memorize keywords. The system is not perfect, however, with some users complaining it doesn't function as advertised by Apple.

Apple acquired Siri in 2010.

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27 Comments

logandigges

said about 11 years ago

WHAT?! WHY?! Oh yeah, no one cares. Apple owns Siri, have you seen what they have done with it? They didn't need him anyways.

anantksundaram

said about 11 years ago

People come, people go.... in a company with 60,000+ employees, it's a rounding error for talent.

allenbf

said about 11 years ago

But I can't help but wonder if Siri feels like C3PO did when Anakin left Tatooine?

mstone

said about 11 years ago

Maybe his obligatory employment period ended and his shares vested. See ya!

His linkedin page still says currently at Apple.

fake_william_shatner

said about 11 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by allenbf

But I can't help but wonder if Siri feels like C3PO did when Anakin left Tatooine?

You know, they failed to explain what sort of amnesia caused Darth Vader to forget he built C3PO.

Kind of like how Apple forget they developed WebTV and the developers went elsewhere....

Super creative developers probably jump around based on projects all the time. If Apple isn't focused on their particular dream - it makes sense to go to someone who is.

It doesn't really say anything about Apple per se.

Now if the rank and file people start leaving, and you see execs cashing in stock options -- THEN that means something.