Apple Kills the Mac Pro and Hires a Google Exec to Fix Siri

Apple confirmed on March 26 that the Mac Pro is discontinued, with no plans to release a future model. The Mac Studio, which Apple updated in early 2025, is now the company's most powerful desktop. The Mac Pro was Apple's highest-end tower workstation and had been sold continuously since 2006. The final configuration used the M2 Ultra chip. Apple told 9to5Mac the decision was final, not a pause. One day later, Apple confirmed the hire of Lilian Rincon as its new vice president of product marketing for AI. Rincon spent nine years at Google, most recently leading product management for Google Shopping and Google Assistant. She will report directly to Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing, and will oversee both product marketing and product management for Apple Intelligence and Siri. The hire is Apple's second significant AI leadership appointment in under four months, following Amar Subramanya, a former Google and Microsoft executive, who joined in December as VP of AI under Craig Federighi. Apple's previous AI chief, John Giannandrea, stepped down earlier this year. The context matters. Apple has faced repeated delays in rolling out Apple Intelligence features that were first announced at WWDC 2024. The updated Siri, which will be rebuilt using Google's Gemini models through a multi-year partnership, is still not live. Apple's revamped Siri is now targeted for iOS 27, expected to debut at WWDC 2026 in June. Rincon's appointment places someone with direct experience building AI-driven consumer products at scale at the center of how Apple communicates and ships its AI story. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman described Apple's current AI strategy as a recommitment to its core business: selling hardware and services, with AI as the layer that makes both more valuable. For developers and digital businesses in Nigeria building for iPhone and iPad, these moves carry a direct implication. The Siri that arrives with iOS 27 will be meaningfully different from the version most users know today. A chatbot-capable, Gemini-powered Siri that opens to third-party AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT changes how users interact with apps and how information is surfaced inside Apple devices. Understanding how Siri evolves in 2026 tells you how to position your product or content for the 1.5 billion iPhones currently in use worldwide.