5 ms·

The only thing Apple is behind on in the AI race is LLMs. They've been vastly ahead of everyone else with things like text OCR, image element recognition / ext

by jorvi 9mo ago

The only thing Apple is behind on in the AI race is LLMs. They've been vastly ahead of everyone else with things like text OCR, image element recognition / extraction, microphone noise suppression, etc. iPhones have had these features 2-5 years before Android did.

fragmede 9mo ago
Kind of a big "only" though. Siri is still shit and it's been 15 years since initial release.
- 0x38B 9mo ago
  When I'm driving and tell Siri, "Call <family member name>", sometimes instead of calling, it says, "To who?", and I can't get it to call no matter what I do.
- asdff 9mo ago
  Amazing how its been 15 years and it still can't discern 15 from 50 when you talk to it.
giancarlostoro 9mo ago
TTS is absolutely horrible on iOS. I have nearly driven into a wall when trying to use it whilst driving and it goofs up what I've said terribly. For the love of all things holy, will someone at Apple finally fix text to speech? It feels like they last touched it in 2016. My phone can run offline LLMs and generate images but it can't understand my words.
- galleywest200 9mo ago
  > I have nearly driven into a wall when trying to use it whilst driving and it goofs up what I've said terribly. People should not be using their phones while driving anyways. My iPhone disables all notifications, except for Find My notifications, while driving. Bluetooth speaker calls are an exception.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  It sounds like you mean STT not TTS there?
  - giancarlostoro 9mo ago
    You're right, in my rage I typod, its really frustrating, even friends will text me and their text makes no sense, and 2 minutes later "STUPID VOICE TO TEXT" I have a few friends who drive trucks, so they need to be able to use their voice to communicate.
    - wolvoleo 9mo ago
      I have to say that OpenAI's Whisper model is excellent. If you could leverage that somehow I think it would really improve. I run it locally myself on an old PC with 3060 card. This way I can run whisper large which is still speedy on a GPU especially with faster-whisper. Added bonus is the language autodetection which is great because I speak 3 languages regularly. I think there's even better models now but Whisper still works fine for me. And there's a big ecosystem around it.
      - nomel 9mo ago
        I wonder what the wattage difference is between the iPhone STT and Whisper? How many seconds would the iPhone battery last?
    - delecti 9mo ago
      Better speech transcription is cool, but that feels kinda contrived. Phone calls exist, so do voice messages sent via texting apps, and professional drivers can also just wait a bit to send messages if they really must be text; they're on the job, but if it's really that urgent they can pull over.
      - jimbokun 9mo ago
        They can also use paper maps instead of GPS.
laweijfmvo 9mo ago
Apple’s AI powered image editor (like removing something from the background) is near unusable. Samsung’s is near magic, Google’s seems great. So there’s a big gap here.
- FridgeSeal 9mo ago
  Well if I ever used an slop-image-generator, that’d be an issue, but as I don’t, it’s a bit of a non-event!
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- adastra22 9mo ago
  That is unrelated to and unmentioned in the post you are responding to.
- jorvi 9mo ago
  That is rather funny because I think Google's and Samsung's AI image actions are completely garbage, butchering things to the point where I'd rather do it manually on my desktop or use prompt editing (which to Google's credit Gemini is fantastic at). Whereas Apple's is flawless in discerning everything within a scene or allowing me to extract single items from within a picture. For example say, a backpack in the background.
- m463 9mo ago
  > unusable apple is so hit or miss. I think the image ocr is great and usable. I can take a picture of a phone number and dial it. but trying to edit a text field is such a nightmare. (try to change "this if good" to "this is good" on iphone with your fingers is non-apple cumbersome)
michaelcampbell 9mo ago
> had these features 2-5 years before Android did. "first" isn't always more important than "best". Apple has historically been ok with not being first, as long as it was either best or very obviously "much better". It always, well, USED TO focus on best. It has lost its way in that lately.

by jorvi 9mo ago

fragmede 9mo ago

Kind of a big "only" though. Siri is still shit and it's been 15 years since initial release.

0x38B 9mo ago
When I'm driving and tell Siri, "Call <family member name>", sometimes instead of calling, it says, "To who?", and I can't get it to call no matter what I do.
asdff 9mo ago
Amazing how its been 15 years and it still can't discern 15 from 50 when you talk to it.

giancarlostoro 9mo ago

TTS is absolutely horrible on iOS. I have nearly driven into a wall when trying to use it whilst driving and it goofs up what I've said terribly. For the love of all things holy, will someone at Apple finally fix text to speech? It feels like they last touched it in 2016. My phone can run offline LLMs and generate images but it can't understand my words.

galleywest200 9mo ago
> I have nearly driven into a wall when trying to use it whilst driving and it goofs up what I've said terribly. People should not be using their phones while driving anyways. My iPhone disables all notifications, except for Find My notifications, while driving. Bluetooth speaker calls are an exception.
wolvoleo 9mo ago
It sounds like you mean STT not TTS there?
- giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  You're right, in my rage I typod, its really frustrating, even friends will text me and their text makes no sense, and 2 minutes later "STUPID VOICE TO TEXT" I have a few friends who drive trucks, so they need to be able to use their voice to communicate.
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    I have to say that OpenAI's Whisper model is excellent. If you could leverage that somehow I think it would really improve. I run it locally myself on an old PC with 3060 card. This way I can run whisper large which is still speedy on a GPU especially with faster-whisper. Added bonus is the language autodetection which is great because I speak 3 languages regularly. I think there's even better models now but Whisper still works fine for me. And there's a big ecosystem around it.
    - nomel 9mo ago
      I wonder what the wattage difference is between the iPhone STT and Whisper? How many seconds would the iPhone battery last?
  - delecti 9mo ago
    Better speech transcription is cool, but that feels kinda contrived. Phone calls exist, so do voice messages sent via texting apps, and professional drivers can also just wait a bit to send messages if they really must be text; they're on the job, but if it's really that urgent they can pull over.
    - jimbokun 9mo ago
      They can also use paper maps instead of GPS.

laweijfmvo 9mo ago

Apple’s AI powered image editor (like removing something from the background) is near unusable. Samsung’s is near magic, Google’s seems great. So there’s a big gap here.

FridgeSeal 9mo ago
Well if I ever used an slop-image-generator, that’d be an issue, but as I don’t, it’s a bit of a non-event!
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
adastra22 9mo ago
That is unrelated to and unmentioned in the post you are responding to.
jorvi 9mo ago
That is rather funny because I think Google's and Samsung's AI image actions are completely garbage, butchering things to the point where I'd rather do it manually on my desktop or use prompt editing (which to Google's credit Gemini is fantastic at). Whereas Apple's is flawless in discerning everything within a scene or allowing me to extract single items from within a picture. For example say, a backpack in the background.
m463 9mo ago
> unusable apple is so hit or miss. I think the image ocr is great and usable. I can take a picture of a phone number and dial it. but trying to edit a text field is such a nightmare. (try to change "this if good" to "this is good" on iphone with your fingers is non-apple cumbersome)

michaelcampbell 9mo ago

> had these features 2-5 years before Android did. "first" isn't always more important than "best". Apple has historically been ok with not being first, as long as it was either best or very obviously "much better". It always, well, USED TO focus on best. It has lost its way in that lately.