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I have low hopes for Apple AI to be relevant, and if it's forced to be relevant, it won't be good. Apple is going to force people to use its crappy AI models f

I have low hopes for Apple AI to be relevant, and if it's forced to be relevant, it won't be good. Apple is going to force people to use its crappy AI models for some BS reason. Some bullshit about privacy or whatever. It's so dumb, it will spell the end of their dominance of the device category in the US. The models have an extremely standardized, fungible interface, and Apple's not going to let OpenAI or whoever plug into their first party Siri or Messages or whatever text, vision and audio interfaces. It will be the most anti-consumer position to take, because it will prevent users from choosing the best models, not just the "most private" or "most X" or whatever aesthetic or subjective concerns users may have, and it will only take a while to impact consumers because Google is really shitty too. When was the last time it made sense to pay attention to an iOS platform technology? Developers have chosen, for the most part, to make the specific platform concerns someone else's problem. Maybe not since the Retina display has anything they have done really mattered to me specifically. I have "just" ignored Swift completely. MPS is cool and Apple Silicon is cool but it's not my problem, it's "just" yet another backend to the thing I actually want to use, like Torch or whatever. Same thing with Siri. Mobile Safari is perpetually deeply behind. Mobile Safari on iOS doesn't have WebXR, and they're aspiring to be an XR company. I ignored the Watch, and I'm pretty much ignoring the Apple Vision Pro, except for supporting it as a Unity target. In fact, even on the AVP and iPhone, all the innovation seemingly is being done in Unity, and maybe only because Epic is beefing with them. I get that people write applications in Swift or whatever. But I don't think it necessarily makes any sense to do that. Just because something happens, doesn't mean it makes sense. Apple doesn't give you access to any of the first party APIs, which is what developers actually want. The AI thing will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. In fact, what piece of software of theirs do you like to use that you aren't basically forced to? Like if the private APIs Photos or Messages used were open to any third party app, well of course we'd all be using third party apps to save our camera photos and send messages with compatibility with people too low tech to use an App Store. Or maybe they would use alternatives.

filoleg 3y ago
> It doesn't have WebXR This is just factually wrong, it has WebXR, I tested it myself on AVP recently. You just gotta enable a toggle in Safari settings once, and then you are able to consume any WebXR content just fine.
- doctorpangloss 3y ago
  Mobile Safari on iOS does not have "immersive" (term of art) WebXR. It doesn't support a pass-through AR experience as Android Chrome does. > You just gotta enable a toggle in Safari settings once That is part of the problem. Like why excuse their nonsense? Why is any of that behind a flag?
  - KerrAvon 3y ago
    Because they don't consider it ready for prime time.
    - zmmmmm 3y ago
      It might sound trite, but then don't consider it to "have it" if it's gated from general use on the basis that it doesn't work properly yet. After all, they released EyeSight and Personas as marquee features even though they don't work properly either. But the situation with WebXR as a pure software development component is a bit simpler. Obviously Apple has the resources to fully develop and release WebXR if it was a priority. My guess is, they are playing their cards close to their chest on how open to make Vision Pro. They won't release WebXR until they've determined it's not a threat to their ambitions. That could be because they scale down their ambitions so it doesn't matter much any more, or alternatively, they successfully establish a fully closed / locked down ecosystem and aren't worried that WebXR could pose a threat.
hashtag-til 3y ago
Why would they give access to third parties if they can provide good user experience in a stack they fully control? It is delusional to think a stable company would follow the research hype of whatever model people are talking this week.
Art9681 3y ago
The fact that you are oblivious to how many AI systems have been deployed over the past several years pre-ChatGPT and continue to run invisibly today without much hype or fervor is a testament to how relevant good AI/ML can be. I would argue that AI-as-a-Product is a fairly recent development and probably why our expectations are skewed. I read most comments like yours as "if it's not AGI then its not even AI". Which is silly of course.
- doctorpangloss 3y ago
  Here is what I am saying: - Apple is making a multi-modal LLM. - There are a lot of pre-existing multi-modal LLMs that perform well. - Their interface is essentially standardized. You could call it an API to AI models. - Apple will utilize a standardized interface when developing and deploying their multi-modal LLM. - The end user will not be able to "choose" "which" multi-modal LLM their end-user software on iOS devices will interact with. - This is really bad, because Apple is not likely to make the best multi-modal LLM, or to have the best multi-modal LLM at all times, so it harms the end-user.
paulmd 3y ago
you heard it here first, rolling out ai features is going to cause all the developers to finally go galt and deprive apple of their valuable skills at telling other people to make new alloys (I guess in software terms that’s calling other people’s APIs lol) (the ai features first rolled out like a decade ago bud, but even if they hadn’t that’s some peak wish-casting right there. It’s incredibly unlikely to ever actually happen, but because you’re so wrapped up in parasocial attachments towards/against these brands, it seems like a very real and possible idea! Another place it shows up a lot is “nvidia should/will stop releasing consumer gpus!” lol - people have been predicting that for years even before AI and it never made any sense even now, but certainly not back then. Just a Rorschach blot reflecting people’s desires back at them.) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wishcasting https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wishcasting
- doctorpangloss 3y ago
  I don't know, I'm not the only one making this bet. Maybe the Humane, or whatever device OpenAI is working on, aren't "It." But there's a chance, a little bit of a chance. > It’s incredibly unlikely to ever actually happen Opening up the first party APIs? We might have an alternative app store by the end of the year, in the EU, which I didn't think was likely either. Anything seems to be possible, suddenly. There's a low possibility that Apple specifically will "solve the summer school scheduling problem," and a high possibility someone else will. If an Android phone lets me do that, "bud," I'm going to stop using an iPhone.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
nozzlegear 3y ago
> Apple is going to force people to use its crappy AI models for some BS reason. Some bullshit about privacy or whatever. Ah yes, I too dislike privacy or whatever. /s > In fact, what piece of software of theirs do you like to use that you aren't basically forced to? Let's see, I use Mail, Calendar, Notes, and Books because they're good enough that I don't want to switch to something else. Final Cut Pro is excellent, I use it on both my Mac and my iPad. My favorite piece of Apple software has to be Freeform I think. If I'm on a call with someone and need to sketch something out, I can just quickly open Freeform and do it from there. Even neater, I can open the same drawing on my iPad and use the Apple Pencil, which will sync in real time with the app on my Mac while on the call. And yeah Excalidraw exists, but Freeform has all of the nice Apple Pencil shortcuts that you can't get in Excalidraw.

filoleg 3y ago

> It doesn't have WebXR This is just factually wrong, it has WebXR, I tested it myself on AVP recently. You just gotta enable a toggle in Safari settings once, and then you are able to consume any WebXR content just fine.

doctorpangloss 3y ago
Mobile Safari on iOS does not have "immersive" (term of art) WebXR. It doesn't support a pass-through AR experience as Android Chrome does. > You just gotta enable a toggle in Safari settings once That is part of the problem. Like why excuse their nonsense? Why is any of that behind a flag?
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  Because they don't consider it ready for prime time.
  - zmmmmm 3y ago
    It might sound trite, but then don't consider it to "have it" if it's gated from general use on the basis that it doesn't work properly yet. After all, they released EyeSight and Personas as marquee features even though they don't work properly either. But the situation with WebXR as a pure software development component is a bit simpler. Obviously Apple has the resources to fully develop and release WebXR if it was a priority. My guess is, they are playing their cards close to their chest on how open to make Vision Pro. They won't release WebXR until they've determined it's not a threat to their ambitions. That could be because they scale down their ambitions so it doesn't matter much any more, or alternatively, they successfully establish a fully closed / locked down ecosystem and aren't worried that WebXR could pose a threat.

hashtag-til 3y ago

Why would they give access to third parties if they can provide good user experience in a stack they fully control? It is delusional to think a stable company would follow the research hype of whatever model people are talking this week.

Art9681 3y ago

The fact that you are oblivious to how many AI systems have been deployed over the past several years pre-ChatGPT and continue to run invisibly today without much hype or fervor is a testament to how relevant good AI/ML can be. I would argue that AI-as-a-Product is a fairly recent development and probably why our expectations are skewed. I read most comments like yours as "if it's not AGI then its not even AI". Which is silly of course.

doctorpangloss 3y ago
Here is what I am saying: - Apple is making a multi-modal LLM. - There are a lot of pre-existing multi-modal LLMs that perform well. - Their interface is essentially standardized. You could call it an API to AI models. - Apple will utilize a standardized interface when developing and deploying their multi-modal LLM. - The end user will not be able to "choose" "which" multi-modal LLM their end-user software on iOS devices will interact with. - This is really bad, because Apple is not likely to make the best multi-modal LLM, or to have the best multi-modal LLM at all times, so it harms the end-user.

paulmd 3y ago

you heard it here first, rolling out ai features is going to cause all the developers to finally go galt and deprive apple of their valuable skills at telling other people to make new alloys (I guess in software terms that’s calling other people’s APIs lol) (the ai features first rolled out like a decade ago bud, but even if they hadn’t that’s some peak wish-casting right there. It’s incredibly unlikely to ever actually happen, but because you’re so wrapped up in parasocial attachments towards/against these brands, it seems like a very real and possible idea! Another place it shows up a lot is “nvidia should/will stop releasing consumer gpus!” lol - people have been predicting that for years even before AI and it never made any sense even now, but certainly not back then. Just a Rorschach blot reflecting people’s desires back at them.) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wishcasting https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wishcasting

doctorpangloss 3y ago
I don't know, I'm not the only one making this bet. Maybe the Humane, or whatever device OpenAI is working on, aren't "It." But there's a chance, a little bit of a chance. > It’s incredibly unlikely to ever actually happen Opening up the first party APIs? We might have an alternative app store by the end of the year, in the EU, which I didn't think was likely either. Anything seems to be possible, suddenly. There's a low possibility that Apple specifically will "solve the summer school scheduling problem," and a high possibility someone else will. If an Android phone lets me do that, "bud," I'm going to stop using an iPhone.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

nozzlegear 3y ago

> Apple is going to force people to use its crappy AI models for some BS reason. Some bullshit about privacy or whatever. Ah yes, I too dislike privacy or whatever. /s > In fact, what piece of software of theirs do you like to use that you aren't basically forced to? Let's see, I use Mail, Calendar, Notes, and Books because they're good enough that I don't want to switch to something else. Final Cut Pro is excellent, I use it on both my Mac and my iPad. My favorite piece of Apple software has to be Freeform I think. If I'm on a call with someone and need to sketch something out, I can just quickly open Freeform and do it from there. Even neater, I can open the same drawing on my iPad and use the Apple Pencil, which will sync in real time with the app on my Mac while on the call. And yeah Excalidraw exists, but Freeform has all of the nice Apple Pencil shortcuts that you can't get in Excalidraw.