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Every time I see a paper from Apple I just feel like, OK so why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? Why give this to developers if you haven’t been

Every time I see a paper from Apple I just feel like, OK so why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? Why give this to developers if you haven’t been able to get Siri to use it yet? Does it not work or something? I guess we’ll find out when devs start trying to make stuff

totetsu 1y ago
Apple silicone unified memory is amazing for running things like ollama. You don’t have to wait for them to release their own applications.
bayindirh 1y ago
> why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? Probably Apple is trying to distill the models so they can run on your phone locally. Remember, most, if not all, of Siri is running on your device. There's no round trip whatsoever for voice processing. Also, for larger models, there will be throwaway VMs per request, so building that infra takes time.
- jonplackett 1y ago
  It says there’s 2 models - one local. It’s already released to app developers to use locally I think (it was in the keynote for WWDC).
  - geoffpado 1y ago
    The model now available to developers (in beta, not in released versions of iOS) is the same model that powers stuff like the much-maligned notification summaries from iOS 18. So your phone does have features that are powered by this stuff… you may just not be particularly overwhelmed by those features.
    - jonplackett 1y ago
      That’s kinda my point though - is this only capable of things like this? If it ia capable of more, why isn’t there something more yet, it’s been a long time waiting…
      - geoffpado 1y ago
        My suspicion with playing with it in the developer betas is that, yes, this is what it’s capable of.
- lxgr 1y ago
  They just launched "Private Cloud Compute" with much fanfare to enable server-side LLM processing, so between that and the fact that Siri has been server-based for most of its existence (local processing is fairly new), I don't think that's their main constraint at this point. That said, "Private Cloud Compute" does run on proprietary Apple hardware, so availability might be a concern (assuming they don't want to start charging for it).
imoverclocked 1y ago
> why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? What exactly are you referring to? Models do run on iPhone and there are features that take advantage of it, today.
- jonplackett 1y ago
  None of those features are in any way interesting though. Image playground is a joke, Siri is a joke, that generative emoji thing is a joke. The AI stuff with photography sure, but that’s more like machine learning. The photo touch up thing is… useable? Sometimes? What is it you’ve been so impressed with?
  - astrange 1y ago
    The main features are text summarization, search, and writing tools.
    - jonplackett 1y ago
      Yes, and these are all pointless. ‘Writing tools’ is there in the text pop up now instead of ‘look up’ even if you’re selecting text on a webpage. It’s just in the way and useless.
      - albumen 1y ago
        I agree. You can revert this UI frustration. Go to your settings. Then, go into screen time. Next, go into content and privacy restrictions and enable that. Under Apple intelligence in the restrictions you can then disable individual features.
        astrange 1y ago
        My anonymous friend who wrote that settings pane would like to say that is not what they meant it for, but have fun. (Since it's meant to restrict your children, using it to restrict yourself will disable some features that'd let you escape it. I forget what exactly, but you might not be able to change the time or something like that.)

totetsu 1y ago

Apple silicone unified memory is amazing for running things like ollama. You don’t have to wait for them to release their own applications.

bayindirh 1y ago

> why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? Probably Apple is trying to distill the models so they can run on your phone locally. Remember, most, if not all, of Siri is running on your device. There's no round trip whatsoever for voice processing. Also, for larger models, there will be throwaway VMs per request, so building that infra takes time.

jonplackett 1y ago
It says there’s 2 models - one local. It’s already released to app developers to use locally I think (it was in the keynote for WWDC).
- geoffpado 1y ago
  The model now available to developers (in beta, not in released versions of iOS) is the same model that powers stuff like the much-maligned notification summaries from iOS 18. So your phone does have features that are powered by this stuff… you may just not be particularly overwhelmed by those features.
  - jonplackett 1y ago
    That’s kinda my point though - is this only capable of things like this? If it ia capable of more, why isn’t there something more yet, it’s been a long time waiting…
    - geoffpado 1y ago
      My suspicion with playing with it in the developer betas is that, yes, this is what it’s capable of.
lxgr 1y ago
They just launched "Private Cloud Compute" with much fanfare to enable server-side LLM processing, so between that and the fact that Siri has been server-based for most of its existence (local processing is fairly new), I don't think that's their main constraint at this point. That said, "Private Cloud Compute" does run on proprietary Apple hardware, so availability might be a concern (assuming they don't want to start charging for it).

imoverclocked 1y ago

> why isn’t my iPhone actually doing any of this yet? What exactly are you referring to? Models do run on iPhone and there are features that take advantage of it, today.

jonplackett 1y ago
None of those features are in any way interesting though. Image playground is a joke, Siri is a joke, that generative emoji thing is a joke. The AI stuff with photography sure, but that’s more like machine learning. The photo touch up thing is… useable? Sometimes? What is it you’ve been so impressed with?
- astrange 1y ago
  The main features are text summarization, search, and writing tools.
  - jonplackett 1y ago
    Yes, and these are all pointless. ‘Writing tools’ is there in the text pop up now instead of ‘look up’ even if you’re selecting text on a webpage. It’s just in the way and useless.
    - albumen 1y ago
      I agree. You can revert this UI frustration. Go to your settings. Then, go into screen time. Next, go into content and privacy restrictions and enable that. Under Apple intelligence in the restrictions you can then disable individual features.
      - astrange 1y ago
        My anonymous friend who wrote that settings pane would like to say that is not what they meant it for, but have fun. (Since it's meant to restrict your children, using it to restrict yourself will disable some features that'd let you escape it. I forget what exactly, but you might not be able to change the time or something like that.)