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I'd really like to see what Apple is doing, they usually come late to the table but they get a lot of things right, even though they may not be the most technol

by kartD 10y ago

I'd really like to see what Apple is doing, they usually come late to the table but they get a lot of things right, even though they may not be the most technologically advanced. Granted this may not be applicable since this is more about AI infrastructure.

danpalmer 10y ago
I definitely agree with your point when it comes to consumer electronics and software, but developer tools/services? I'm not sure. Their investment in AI technology so far looks very small as well.
ethbro 10y ago
I'm kind of curious too. They've got the revenue to fund it, but I wouldn't say "theoretically advanced software" has historically been Apple's notable quality (subject to a few periods and exceptions). Incredible design, hardware engineering, and product fit, yes. But the software typically seemed a more polished version of mainstream ideas.
- surfmike 10y ago
  Agreed. Took Apple a long time for their cloud based services to work out their kinks.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    Apple "worked out the kinks" of iCloud by outsourcing it to actual cloud providers. They may become a cloud services powerhouse but they are way behind today.
  - kartD 10y ago
    Maps too, they're adding some really cool features that google doesn't have
s3r3nity 10y ago
This is actually where I'm worried Apple is falling behind, _because_ they are a bit private & come late to to the table. Microsoft, Google, and others very openly share and learn from the AI community, but Apple has been known to be only a "lurker" at best (for lack of a better term.)
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  They have almost constantly innovated by acquisition. That explains their lurker status, I think.
  - kartD 10y ago
    They're also very secretive. They only say they do something new publicly when they have a product to show it off.
dharma1 10y ago
Well, I doubt they are going to open source a machine learning framework to rival TensorFlow anytime soon, but they recently added CNN API's to iOS and macOS, so you can do optimised inference on Apple devices. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/715/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/715/
cm2012 10y ago
Apple is not really a leader in software the same way they are in hardware.
objectivistbrit 10y ago
Brett Victor mentioned Apple experimenting with many futuristic interfaces, but not developing them further after realising they didn't work from a UI pov. I suspect they may have similar feelings about AI. Many 'clever' systems which aim to predict what the user wants can be frustrating in practice. People prefer tool-like UIs where they can learn the mapping between their actions and the software's behaviour. Personally, I think there should be more focus on AI augmenting human capabilities, and maybe Apple is working on something like that.

by kartD 10y ago

danpalmer 10y ago

I definitely agree with your point when it comes to consumer electronics and software, but developer tools/services? I'm not sure. Their investment in AI technology so far looks very small as well.

ethbro 10y ago

I'm kind of curious too. They've got the revenue to fund it, but I wouldn't say "theoretically advanced software" has historically been Apple's notable quality (subject to a few periods and exceptions). Incredible design, hardware engineering, and product fit, yes. But the software typically seemed a more polished version of mainstream ideas.

surfmike 10y ago
Agreed. Took Apple a long time for their cloud based services to work out their kinks.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Apple "worked out the kinks" of iCloud by outsourcing it to actual cloud providers. They may become a cloud services powerhouse but they are way behind today.
- kartD 10y ago
  Maps too, they're adding some really cool features that google doesn't have

s3r3nity 10y ago

This is actually where I'm worried Apple is falling behind, _because_ they are a bit private & come late to to the table. Microsoft, Google, and others very openly share and learn from the AI community, but Apple has been known to be only a "lurker" at best (for lack of a better term.)

spacemanmatt 10y ago
They have almost constantly innovated by acquisition. That explains their lurker status, I think.
- kartD 10y ago
  They're also very secretive. They only say they do something new publicly when they have a product to show it off.

dharma1 10y ago

Well, I doubt they are going to open source a machine learning framework to rival TensorFlow anytime soon, but they recently added CNN API's to iOS and macOS, so you can do optimised inference on Apple devices. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/715/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/715/

cm2012 10y ago

Apple is not really a leader in software the same way they are in hardware.

objectivistbrit 10y ago

Brett Victor mentioned Apple experimenting with many futuristic interfaces, but not developing them further after realising they didn't work from a UI pov. I suspect they may have similar feelings about AI. Many 'clever' systems which aim to predict what the user wants can be frustrating in practice. People prefer tool-like UIs where they can learn the mapping between their actions and the software's behaviour. Personally, I think there should be more focus on AI augmenting human capabilities, and maybe Apple is working on something like that.