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

Brian Lynch, the hardware engineer overseeing home devices at Apple, has left Apple for Oura, maker of fitness-tracking rings. No reason has been given for Lynch’s departure, but Apple’s long-awaited, still-non-existent-but-definitely-not-vaporware Siri revamp is the elephant in the room. Two days ago, I compared the 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 hint that several smart home devices in Apple’s product pipeline have been delayed as a result of Apple’s inability to ship a satisfactory new version of Siri, despite the fact that Apple started marketing one in 2024 that never materialized. Today, Oura’s CEO, Tom Hale, informed Bloomberg that Lynch has been poached, and will serve as the company’s senior vice president for hardware engineering. As Bloomberg also points out, Oura’s head of design is an Apple alum, as is the person with the job title “chief medical officer.” Apple hinted at changes coming to its line of smart home gadgets last month when it ended support for the original version of the Apple Home platform, whi