According to an emerging media narrative, Apple fumbled its lead in voice assistants with Siri, and has been relegated into a distant third behind the new leaders in talking to cloud-connected microphones: Amazon’s Alexa-powered WiFi mics and its ecosystem of connected devices and a platform of third-party Alexa Skills; and Google’s me-too efforts tied to its Assistant running on Android, iOS and some Google-branded appliances.
A recent piece by The Information described the entire history of Siri at Apple as being non-stop dramatic infighting over a series of foundational mistakes and fragile code all falling apart while new acquisitions were thrown on top.