Apple’s Head Engineer for Home Units Quits Apple Amid Siri Debacle, Joins Oura

Brian Lynch, the {hardware} engineer overseeing residence gadgets at Apple, has left Apple for Oura, maker of fitness-tracking rings. No purpose has been given for Lynch’s departure, however Apple’s long-awaited, still-non-existent-but-definitely-not-vaporware Siri revamp is the elephant within the room.

Two days in the past, I in contrast the brand new Siri to “a white whale dragging a huge group of Apple’s product engineers to the depths along with their ship, loaded with what were supposed to be exciting new Apple gadgets.” Leaks strongly trace that a number of good residence gadgets in Apple’s product pipeline have been delayed on account of Apple’s incapacity to ship a passable new model of Siri, even if Apple started marketing one in 2024 that by no means materialized.

Today, Oura’s CEO, Tom Hale, informed Bloomberg that Lynch has been poached, and can function the corporate’s senior vp for {hardware} engineering. As Bloomberg additionally factors out, Oura’s head of design is an Apple alum, as is the individual with the job title “chief medical officer.”

Apple hinted at modifications coming to its line of good residence devices final month when it ended support for the unique model of the Apple Home platform, which didn’t render outdated gadgets ineffective, however it pressured customers to replace or danger shedding compatibility with related gadgets and home equipment. “It makes sense that Apple should finally remove the chaff from its old Home architecture for the sake of the new,” wrote my Gizmodo colleague Kyle Barr.

But the brand new has not arrived but. According to Bloomberg, Apple’s new-Siri-dependent line of good residence gadgets with screens won’t roll out till September on the earliest, which can be the earliest we should always anticipate to see the brand new “personalized” Siri.

In December of final yr, as Apple handled a wave of departing vice presidents, rumors swirled that CEO Tim Cook was on the verge of leaving in 2026. Yesterday on Good Morning America, when asked if he was leaving, he said “No, I didn’t say that. I haven’t said that. I love what I do deeply.” Cook additionally claimed he “can’t imagine life without Apple.”