Apple hampered its Siri ambitions by penny-pinching

If Apple isn't able to get its Siri improvements out with iOS 19 in the fall, a new report tries to put the blame on early cost-cutting decisions by CFO Luca Maestri.

First it was that Apple is years behind the rest of the industry in AI, then it was that Apple management can't cope. Now according to the New York Times, the reason Apple Intelligence is failing is because Apple was too miserly to spend some cash years ago.

Specifically, the claim is that in 2023, the then-chief financial officer Luca Maestri halved a budget that engineers had wanted for buying GPU processors for AI development work. It doesn't matter that Apple is often the most highly valued firm in the world, you don't get to be CFO of it if you're not in absolute control of spending.

Only, the story is that the engineers first went to Tim Cook with their pitch — and Cook said yes. Maestri then wasn't just rejecting Apple's engineers, he was saying no to the CEO.

It's not impossible. And in 2023, there wasn't the same mad scramble for AI that there is now, so it's understandably unlucky timing. Or it's that the engineers didn't make a good enough case.

Their case would have seen the team's processor budget double. Maestri did increase the budget, but reportedly less than half of what was originally approved.

He's said to have told the team to be more efficient with the processors they already had.

The AI team therefore reportedly had to negotiate with Google and Amazon to use their data centers instead of, presumably, Apple's own. They were also only able to do some unspecified proportion of their AI development on Nvidia processors, because of availability.

This report does also say that Tim Cook is said to be reluctant to give clear direction to product teams. That might speak to how Steve Jobs said Cook was not a "product person".

Or it could be that communication within Apple management is failing. Whichever it is, Cook seemingly did not tell Maestri no, the team needs that budget.

So the team didn't get it, the team has poor management, and consequently Apple is now embarrassed by the slow rollout of an improved Siri.

Just as with all recent reports about the internal disagreements over AI at Apple, this new account mostly sees it as good news that the company has changed managers. It warns of a shifting deck chairs kind of mentality, and the report warns of how Apple is losing experienced staff to retirement and to being poached.

If Apple is able to turn around its Apple Intelligence fortunes, then in years to come the credit will be given to Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell. The former is the high-profile and charismatic software chief, while the latter headed up the Apple Vision Pro.

Rockwell has replaced Apple AI head John Giannandrea, and will be reporting to Federighi.

But then there is Kim Vorrath. Despite being a very long-time Apple employee, she's not had the kind of profile some other key staff have.

Yet reportedly, she is known within Apple for being a fixer who gets projects back on track. In January 2025, she was moved to the Apple Intelligence team — and now we're seeing that team shaken up.

Although she's probably not responsible for Luca Maestri stepping down as CFO.