Going by Siri, they are behind competition by a wide margin.

I don't think Siri's quality is a good indication of Apple's ability to come out with a successful LLM product in the future.

One thing I think about is how Alexa is apparently considered a failure at Amazon (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...). Alexa devices sell well but people only use them for trivial use cases that are hard to monetize.

I speculate that Apple doesn't see a need to invest in Siri because the market has shown that digital assistants don't synergize with "services" that well.

Additionally, I don't think that Apple will need to leverage the "Siri codebase" as a starting point for releasing a compelling LLM codebase - maybe voice recognition, but who knows.

Apple has shown through other product launches that they will take a "wait and see" approach and release something when its ready.

If that's the case, why do they keep releasing HomePods?

They’re a fabulous Bluetooth speaker if nothing else

HomePods "synergize" well with Apple Music subscriptions.

I also think they're a protective measure to keep people from getting someone else's smart device, which might lead you into someone else's ecosystem.

I think this is a fair point. Taking a look at the product page for the $300 HomePod (https://www.apple.com/homepod-2nd-generation/), I would argue that the HomePod is marketed more as a speaker with Siri integration rather than a Siri device with a really good speaker.

The bullet points I see on the above page, in order, are - really good speaker - Siri integration - integrates with Apple ecosystem for playing music - smart home integration - "private and secure" whatever that means

So, it's not clear to me that "a better Siri" would necessarily result in selling X amount more speakers to make Siri a worthy investment while investing in better audio technology does because it's the main selling point for HomePods.

Homepods are great to pair with Apple TVs for stereo sound.

A major issue with Apple and LLM is that they pledged data privacy. I don’t think they’re training on anything special.

They keep releasing new hardware that could really use a much better Siri (AirPods, HomePod, Watch, and now Vision) so the ongoing lack of a quality voice UI is embarrassing.

I very much think it has to be in their near future.

I agree, this will probably be more impactful than the Vision Pro. Making all their products way more useful. You can already run Llama on a Mac and it’s pretty great. When Apple release theirs it will probably be a very nice experience.

LLM from apple? I tried dozens of voice assistants in my life and non of them was worse than Siri by a very large margin. I can't even remember a single time I got a useful answer from Siri and 90% of the time, it was not even able to understand what I said (no problems with other assistants).