6 ms·

> But now there’s a new paradigm shift. The iPhone was perfect for the mobile era, which is why it hasn’t changed much over the last decade. > AI unlocks what

> But now there’s a new paradigm shift. The iPhone was perfect for the mobile era, which is why it hasn’t changed much over the last decade. > AI unlocks what seems to be the future: dynamic, context-dependent generative UIs or something similar. Why couldn’t my watch and glasses be everything I need? https://www.apple.com/watch/ https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ > The other problem is that at its core, AI is two things: 1) software and 2) extremely fast-moving/evolving, two things Apple is bad at. Idk my MacBook Pro is pretty great and runs well. Fast moving here implies that as soon as you release something there's like this big paradigm shift or change that means you need to move even faster to catch up, but I don't think that's the case, and where it is the case the new software (LLM) still need to be distributed to end users and devices so for a company like Apple they pay money and build functionality to be the distributor of the latest models and it doesn't really matter how fast they're created. Apple's real threat is a category shift in devices, which AI may or may not necessarily be part of. I'm less certain about Amazon but unless (insert AI company) wants to take on all the business risk of hosting governments and corporations and hospitals on a cloud platform I think Amazon can just publish their own models, buy someone else's, or integrate with multiple leading AI model publishers.

vonneumannstan 1y ago
>I'm less certain about Amazon but unless (insert AI company) wants to take on all the business risk of hosting governments and corporations and hospitals on a cloud platform I think Amazon can just publish their own models, buy someone else's, or integrate with multiple leading AI model publishers. Amazon is capturing massive amounts of the value in AI via AWS. They'll be fine. But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Could just be infinitely better...
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Could just be infinitely better... Alexa would "a higher order infinity" better if it wasn't spying on you ...
- xena 1y ago
  > But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Large language models are too slow to use as real-time voice assistants. ChatGPT voice only barely works because they have to use a much worse (but faster) model to do it.
  - vonneumannstan 1y ago
    At least on paper OpenAI claims the Voice models are actually the ones you are picking i.e. GPT 4o, 5. In any case even a GPT 3.5 would be superior to current alexa...
  - coredog64 1y ago
    Amazon has a commercial Speech-to-Text model (Nova Sonic) that is passable. I used it to create a post-sales call assistant and was surprised that the underlying model was able to do a bunch of stuff I thought I was going to have to use Claude for.
- taeric 1y ago
  I'm not clear on what would be better about my Echos having an LLM interface. I want to like the idea, but I'm also growing increasingly annoyed at how things that used to work are beginning to not. If they could gate it behind a "start chat session" or something, I would be more excited. Doing it by cannibalizing how well basic "play radio/start time/read from audible" worked for the longest time, everything they do that causes friction there is frustrating, to the extreme.
  - vonneumannstan 1y ago
    >Doing it by cannibalizing how well basic "play radio/start time/read from audible" worked for the longest time, everything they do that causes friction there is frustrating, to the extreme. Theres absolutely no reason why plugging in an LLM would break any of those features but asking generic questions would be 100x better than "Searching the web for a shitty Quora or Alexa answers question."
    - taeric 1y ago
      In principle, I agree with you. In practice, it keeps getting worse. I also don't typically ask generic questions. Ever, that I can remember. Again, I don't want to dislike the idea. If people are really getting value from it, I would like them to continue to do so. But it seems to be a more expensive way to service use cases that were working just fine.
    - mjmas 1y ago
      Pluhging in an LLM breaks it when those features require it to be worded a certain way. Agree that it shouldn't, but that seems to be the way it is often done. For example, I tried Google's Gemini a while ago instead of Google Assistant on my phone and it was unable to do basic things like 'open the Signal app' and would instead go on a big tangent about how it can't open the Signal app for me, but that I could open the Signal app by finding it on my home screen or if I don't have it installed I can download it from the play store etc.
- qcnguy 1y ago
  Alexa was a huge money loser for Amazon even before LLMs. They can't afford it.
coredog64 1y ago
> I think Amazon can just publish their own models, buy someone else's, or integrate with multiple leading AI model publishers. This is exactly what they've done: They offer SageMaker (and similar capabilities) for hosting smaller models that fit into a single instance GPU, and they have Bedrock that hosts a metric crap-ton of AWS and third party models. Many of the model architectures are supported for hosting fine-tuned versions.
Spooky23 1y ago
I think the bet here is that AI is like Dropbox — a feature. Operating globally, these models are going to be a regulatory tar pit. The industry hype train is 100% reliant on courts ignoring the law - that didn’t work out well for Napster. That makes the “category shift” difficult for Apple to execute well and difficult for competitors to gun for them. Microsoft is even worse off there because the PC OEMs relied on dying companies like Intel to deliver engineering for innovative things. AWS, Azure, and GCP are doing the same stuff in different flavors. Google and Microsoft approach human facing stuff differently because they own collaboration platforms. Apple and Microsoft are both flailing at the device level. Apple is ahead there as at least I can tell you what they are not doing well. Microsoft’s approach is so incoherent that it struggles to tell you what they are doing, period.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > Apple and Microsoft are both flailing at the device level. Apple is ahead there as at least I can tell you what they are not doing well. Microsoft’s approach is so incoherent that it struggles to tell you what they are doing, period. Can you elaborate? I don't see what you're seeing.
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    There’s a whole industry around critiquing Apple and their misadventures on iOS with respect to AI. We understand what is happening - there’s even podcasters castigating individual executives! What is the story with Copilot as an on device feature of Windows? How dos that relate to an “AI PC”? In my business, what is Copilot (on the PC) do? How about Copilot Chat? How do they both relate to Copilot for Office 365? Answer: I have no fucking idea. It’s a big soup of stuff with the same name that dumps everything in a bowl that the company makes. In a business, you’re going to make product decisions within your enterprise than fundamentally change the products based on your privacy and security needs and what countries you are operating in. Apple has articulated a vision/framework for what they are delivering on device, with outside 1st party help and with 3rd parties. They’ve laid out how they are accessing your proprietary data. They have also failed to deliver.
madmax96 1y ago
Came here to say pretty much this. Hardware seems more valuable than a model. I think AI could be commoditized. Look at DeepSeek stealing OpenAI's model. Look at the competitive performance between Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini. Look at open weight models, like Llama. Commoditized AI need used via a device. The post argues that other devices, like watches or smart glasses, could be better posed to use AI. But...your point stands. Given Apple's success with hardware, I wouldn't bet against them making competitive wearables. Hardware is hard. It's expensive to get wrong. It seems like a hardware company would be better positioned to build hardware than an AI company. Especially when you can steal the AI company's model. Supply chains, battery optimization, etc. are all hard-won battles. But AI companies have had their models stolen in months. If OpenAI really believed models would remain differentiated then why venture into hardware at all?
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  Moreover, Apple owning the access to the device-hardware AND to the data those models would need to create value for an Apple-user makes the company even more robust. They could manage years of AI-missteps while cultivating their AI "marketplace", which allows the user to select a RevShare'd third party AI if (and only if) Apple cannot serve the request. It would keep them afloat in the AI-space no matter how far they are behind, as long as the iPhone remains the dominant consumer mobile device. The only risks are a paradigm shift in mobile devices, and the EU which clearly noticed that they operate multiple uneven digital markets within their ecosystem...
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    "The only risks" lol. Tim Cook thought those were the only risks to the App Store too, now look where he is. You lack imagination. What if [Japan|EU|US DOJ|South Korea] passes a law preventing OEMs from claiming user data as their property? If Apple really tries to go down the road of squeezing pre-juiced lemons like this, I think they're going to be called out for stifling competition and real innovation.
    - rickdeckard 1y ago
saurik 1y ago
> > Why couldn’t my watch and glasses be everything I need? > https://www.apple.com/watch/ https://www.apple.com/watch/ (I am mostly going to comment on the Watch issue, as I have one.) Apple makes a watch, yes. But is it an AI watch? Will they manage to make it become one? Intel made all kinds of chips. Intel's chips even could be used for mobile devices... only, Intel never (even still, to today) made a great mobile chip. I have an Apple Watch--and AirPods Pro, which connect directly to it--with a cellular plan. I already found how few things I can do with my Watch kind of pathetic, given that I would think the vast majority of the things I want to do could be done with a device like my watch; but, in a world with AI, where voice mode finally becomes compelling enough to be willing to use, it just feels insane. I mean, I can't even get access to YouTube Music on just my watch. I can use Apple's Music--so you know this hardware is capable of doing it--but a lot of the content I listen to (which isn't even always "Music": you can also access podcasts) is on YouTube. Somehow, the Apple Watch version of YouTube access requires me to have my phone nearby?! I can't imagine Google wanted that: I think that's a limitation of the application model (which is notoriously limited). If I could access YouTube Music on my watch, I would've barely ever needed my iPhone around. But like, now, I spend a lot of time using ChatGPT, and I really like its advanced voice mode... it is a new reason to use my iPhone, but is a feature that would clearly be amazing with just the watch: hell... I can even use it to browse the web? With a tiny bit of work, I could have a voice interface for everything I do (aka, the dream of Siri long gone past). But, I can't even access the thing that already works great, today, with just my watch. What's the deal? Is it that OpenAI really doesn't want me to do that? These two companies have a partnership over a bunch of things--my ChatGPT account credentials are even something embedded into my iPhone settings--so I'd think Apple would be hungry for this to happen, and should've asked them, thrown it in as a term, or even done the work of integrating it for them (as they have in the past for Google's services). This feels to me like Apple has a way they intend me to use the watch, and "you don't need to ever have your phone with you" is not something they want to achieve: if they add functionality that allows the Watch to replace an iPhone, they might lose some usage of iPhones, and that probably sounds terrifying (in the same way they seem adamant that an iPad can't ever truly compete with a MacBook, even if it is only like two trivial features away).
- _23sd 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
scubadude 1y ago
>AI is two things: 1) software and 2) extremely fast-moving/evolving 3) massive scam

vonneumannstan 1y ago

>I'm less certain about Amazon but unless (insert AI company) wants to take on all the business risk of hosting governments and corporations and hospitals on a cloud platform I think Amazon can just publish their own models, buy someone else's, or integrate with multiple leading AI model publishers. Amazon is capturing massive amounts of the value in AI via AWS. They'll be fine. But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Could just be infinitely better...

aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Could just be infinitely better... Alexa would "a higher order infinity" better if it wasn't spying on you ...
xena 1y ago
> But for real I don't see a reason why Alexa is not using a good LLM now. Large language models are too slow to use as real-time voice assistants. ChatGPT voice only barely works because they have to use a much worse (but faster) model to do it.
- vonneumannstan 1y ago
  At least on paper OpenAI claims the Voice models are actually the ones you are picking i.e. GPT 4o, 5. In any case even a GPT 3.5 would be superior to current alexa...
- coredog64 1y ago
  Amazon has a commercial Speech-to-Text model (Nova Sonic) that is passable. I used it to create a post-sales call assistant and was surprised that the underlying model was able to do a bunch of stuff I thought I was going to have to use Claude for.
taeric 1y ago
I'm not clear on what would be better about my Echos having an LLM interface. I want to like the idea, but I'm also growing increasingly annoyed at how things that used to work are beginning to not. If they could gate it behind a "start chat session" or something, I would be more excited. Doing it by cannibalizing how well basic "play radio/start time/read from audible" worked for the longest time, everything they do that causes friction there is frustrating, to the extreme.
- vonneumannstan 1y ago
  >Doing it by cannibalizing how well basic "play radio/start time/read from audible" worked for the longest time, everything they do that causes friction there is frustrating, to the extreme. Theres absolutely no reason why plugging in an LLM would break any of those features but asking generic questions would be 100x better than "Searching the web for a shitty Quora or Alexa answers question."
  - taeric 1y ago
    In principle, I agree with you. In practice, it keeps getting worse. I also don't typically ask generic questions. Ever, that I can remember. Again, I don't want to dislike the idea. If people are really getting value from it, I would like them to continue to do so. But it seems to be a more expensive way to service use cases that were working just fine.
  - mjmas 1y ago
    Pluhging in an LLM breaks it when those features require it to be worded a certain way. Agree that it shouldn't, but that seems to be the way it is often done. For example, I tried Google's Gemini a while ago instead of Google Assistant on my phone and it was unable to do basic things like 'open the Signal app' and would instead go on a big tangent about how it can't open the Signal app for me, but that I could open the Signal app by finding it on my home screen or if I don't have it installed I can download it from the play store etc.
qcnguy 1y ago
Alexa was a huge money loser for Amazon even before LLMs. They can't afford it.

coredog64 1y ago

> I think Amazon can just publish their own models, buy someone else's, or integrate with multiple leading AI model publishers. This is exactly what they've done: They offer SageMaker (and similar capabilities) for hosting smaller models that fit into a single instance GPU, and they have Bedrock that hosts a metric crap-ton of AWS and third party models. Many of the model architectures are supported for hosting fine-tuned versions.

Spooky23 1y ago

I think the bet here is that AI is like Dropbox — a feature. Operating globally, these models are going to be a regulatory tar pit. The industry hype train is 100% reliant on courts ignoring the law - that didn’t work out well for Napster. That makes the “category shift” difficult for Apple to execute well and difficult for competitors to gun for them. Microsoft is even worse off there because the PC OEMs relied on dying companies like Intel to deliver engineering for innovative things. AWS, Azure, and GCP are doing the same stuff in different flavors. Google and Microsoft approach human facing stuff differently because they own collaboration platforms. Apple and Microsoft are both flailing at the device level. Apple is ahead there as at least I can tell you what they are not doing well. Microsoft’s approach is so incoherent that it struggles to tell you what they are doing, period.

andsoitis 1y ago
> Apple and Microsoft are both flailing at the device level. Apple is ahead there as at least I can tell you what they are not doing well. Microsoft’s approach is so incoherent that it struggles to tell you what they are doing, period. Can you elaborate? I don't see what you're seeing.
- Spooky23 1y ago
  There’s a whole industry around critiquing Apple and their misadventures on iOS with respect to AI. We understand what is happening - there’s even podcasters castigating individual executives! What is the story with Copilot as an on device feature of Windows? How dos that relate to an “AI PC”? In my business, what is Copilot (on the PC) do? How about Copilot Chat? How do they both relate to Copilot for Office 365? Answer: I have no fucking idea. It’s a big soup of stuff with the same name that dumps everything in a bowl that the company makes. In a business, you’re going to make product decisions within your enterprise than fundamentally change the products based on your privacy and security needs and what countries you are operating in. Apple has articulated a vision/framework for what they are delivering on device, with outside 1st party help and with 3rd parties. They’ve laid out how they are accessing your proprietary data. They have also failed to deliver.

madmax96 1y ago

Came here to say pretty much this. Hardware seems more valuable than a model. I think AI could be commoditized. Look at DeepSeek stealing OpenAI's model. Look at the competitive performance between Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini. Look at open weight models, like Llama. Commoditized AI need used via a device. The post argues that other devices, like watches or smart glasses, could be better posed to use AI. But...your point stands. Given Apple's success with hardware, I wouldn't bet against them making competitive wearables. Hardware is hard. It's expensive to get wrong. It seems like a hardware company would be better positioned to build hardware than an AI company. Especially when you can steal the AI company's model. Supply chains, battery optimization, etc. are all hard-won battles. But AI companies have had their models stolen in months. If OpenAI really believed models would remain differentiated then why venture into hardware at all?

rickdeckard 1y ago
Moreover, Apple owning the access to the device-hardware AND to the data those models would need to create value for an Apple-user makes the company even more robust. They could manage years of AI-missteps while cultivating their AI "marketplace", which allows the user to select a RevShare'd third party AI if (and only if) Apple cannot serve the request. It would keep them afloat in the AI-space no matter how far they are behind, as long as the iPhone remains the dominant consumer mobile device. The only risks are a paradigm shift in mobile devices, and the EU which clearly noticed that they operate multiple uneven digital markets within their ecosystem...
- bigyabai 1y ago
  "The only risks" lol. Tim Cook thought those were the only risks to the App Store too, now look where he is. You lack imagination. What if [Japan|EU|US DOJ|South Korea] passes a law preventing OEMs from claiming user data as their property? If Apple really tries to go down the road of squeezing pre-juiced lemons like this, I think they're going to be called out for stifling competition and real innovation.
  - rickdeckard 1y ago

saurik 1y ago

> > Why couldn’t my watch and glasses be everything I need? > https://www.apple.com/watch/ https://www.apple.com/watch/ (I am mostly going to comment on the Watch issue, as I have one.) Apple makes a watch, yes. But is it an AI watch? Will they manage to make it become one? Intel made all kinds of chips. Intel's chips even could be used for mobile devices... only, Intel never (even still, to today) made a great mobile chip. I have an Apple Watch--and AirPods Pro, which connect directly to it--with a cellular plan. I already found how few things I can do with my Watch kind of pathetic, given that I would think the vast majority of the things I want to do could be done with a device like my watch; but, in a world with AI, where voice mode finally becomes compelling enough to be willing to use, it just feels insane. I mean, I can't even get access to YouTube Music on just my watch. I can use Apple's Music--so you know this hardware is capable of doing it--but a lot of the content I listen to (which isn't even always "Music": you can also access podcasts) is on YouTube. Somehow, the Apple Watch version of YouTube access requires me to have my phone nearby?! I can't imagine Google wanted that: I think that's a limitation of the application model (which is notoriously limited). If I could access YouTube Music on my watch, I would've barely ever needed my iPhone around. But like, now, I spend a lot of time using ChatGPT, and I really like its advanced voice mode... it is a new reason to use my iPhone, but is a feature that would clearly be amazing with just the watch: hell... I can even use it to browse the web? With a tiny bit of work, I could have a voice interface for everything I do (aka, the dream of Siri long gone past). But, I can't even access the thing that already works great, today, with just my watch. What's the deal? Is it that OpenAI really doesn't want me to do that? These two companies have a partnership over a bunch of things--my ChatGPT account credentials are even something embedded into my iPhone settings--so I'd think Apple would be hungry for this to happen, and should've asked them, thrown it in as a term, or even done the work of integrating it for them (as they have in the past for Google's services). This feels to me like Apple has a way they intend me to use the watch, and "you don't need to ever have your phone with you" is not something they want to achieve: if they add functionality that allows the Watch to replace an iPhone, they might lose some usage of iPhones, and that probably sounds terrifying (in the same way they seem adamant that an iPad can't ever truly compete with a MacBook, even if it is only like two trivial features away).

_23sd 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

scubadude 1y ago

>AI is two things: 1) software and 2) extremely fast-moving/evolving 3) massive scam