Apple hires hundreds of engineers to improve Siri

Apple launched HomePod in the US and other markets last month, but the $349 smart speaker doesn't seem to perform well in terms of intelligence, and users are complaining about Siri again. But Apple obviously understands this, so last month there was news that they were hesitating whether to completely tear down Siri and redo it. Now it seems that Apple has made up its mind and is frantically recruiting engineers for the Siri project.

Thinknum is a website that focuses on observing job information. They recently published an article saying that in Apple's latest recruitment list, there are as many as 161 positions containing "Siri", which is a 24% increase from last month, setting a record high. This is also the ninth consecutive month that such positions have increased, as shown in the following figure:

According to statistics, the vast majority of Siri job openings are located in Apple Park. Of the 161 positions, 125 will be located in the area. In addition, there are also Siri-related job openings in San Francisco, Shanghai, Cambridge, etc. In terms of departments, there are 154 positions in software engineering, 1 design position, 3 product management positions, and 3 information system and technology positions.

It is understood that Michael Abbout, a technology guru, has also joined Apple some time ago. He will participate in and even lead the development of Siri. Abbout was once the vice president of Twitter. When he was the general manager of Microsoft, he built the Azure cloud platform for the company. When he was the senior vice president of applications and services at Palm, he participated in the development of webOS. In the past few years, he transformed into a venture capitalist, but recently he "returned" to Apple. He said that he "saw what he really wanted to do."

Siri has been heavily criticized for lagging behind other smart assistants on the market, and is not as smart as competitors such as Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana. Although not many job details have been disclosed, this recruitment rush certainly shows that Apple is working hard to improve Siri's performance.