Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 267 posts

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#31

Post by k-mcgrady »

paul9290 wrote: post #17
wklauss wrote: post #8

> Six years later, the technology giant is struggling to find its voice in AI. I know that this is the most common approach to the situation but the article -as many other articles that have argued this before- provides no proof other than analysts speaking in broad strokes. I use Siri, Alexa and Assistant several times a week if not everyday and I'd hesitate a lot before saying that Siri is behind. Alexa is more res…

I have used Siri faithfully from 2011 til about the start of this year where I bought a google home. Siri is flat out dumb and frustrating to use comparatively in terms of only understanding 85 percent of my queries vs. Google Home understanding 97 percent. It seems to me Apple has not taken all their hordes of cash and used it to up the AI game. Looks like they are solely focused on the present while competitors are…

>> Like last weeks WWDC they debuted the AR kit but did not bother to create an amazing/innovate AR app to showcase and get the masses excited for AR and their possible upcoming AR gear.

Why would they announce an app for supposed upcoming AR product before announcing the actual product? You announce the developer kit 6 months before that happens, get them working on apps, and then when you announce your AR product there are lots of apps, not just an in-house one, ready to go. Even if an AR specific product doesn't launch soon they've brought a good AR API to devs a few months before iOS 11 - and when it does (if developers take advantage of the API's) millions of people will be using AR daily on their iOS devices. Right now I know absolutely nobody using AR on any platform. That's going to change very quickly and an in-house app won't make a bit of difference.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#32

Post by eanzenberg »

One thing to remember is, it's easier to build AI and ML when you are willing to use lots of user data but it's not impossible if you put limits on your access to user data.

For example, when you meet someone, they don't need to know everything about your life to be useful. The same is the case for building internet AIs. Using more pre-trained models. Asking the right questions and listening to the responses.

Sure, it's easier if you have access and are willing to use user data to build those predictive models. But there is some real value in the world for companies who respect user privacy AND build predictive models.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#33

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

__jal wrote: post #20
macinjosh wrote: post #3

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

Can't claim to be a fanboy, but I am a longtime user[1], and this is the primary reason I stick to them for my phone. I frankly can't imagine using Android the way I use my Iphone - the privacy invasions considered acceptable are well in to the "no go" range for me, before even getting to the malware that pass for "free apps". If I were somehow forced to use Android, I'm pretty sure I'd treat it as an adversarial dev…

For an Android alternative, check out CopperheadOS [0]. I'd argue it's better than iOS in privacy, since you can compile it yourself (excluding a few binary blobs).

[0] https://copperhead.co/android/

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#34

Post by BoorishBears »

macinjosh wrote: post #30
theCricketer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on Android's weaknesses when it comes to privacy and contrast this with Apple's approach? Asking genuinely to update my understanding.

The glib response is to point out the difference between Apple's and Google's business models. Apple makes money by selling devices, Google sells ads (i.e. sells their customers' data to advertisers).

And that Apple is the OEM behind the device that runs their OS, and Google (usually) isn't.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#35

Post by Grazester »

darrmit wrote: post #29
macinjosh wrote: post #3

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

Completely agree. I switched between Android and iOS for years because I enjoyed aspects of both, but the privacy concerns around Google (and by proxy, Android, thanks to the Google Play Store monopoly on app distribution) have seemingly permanently tipped the scales towards iOS at this point.

"(and by proxy, Android, thanks to the Google Play Store monopoly on app distribution) have seemingly permanently tipped the scales towards iOS at this point."

Do you even know what you are talking about? On an Android phone you could install other App stores and side load apps. You can't do any of this on iOS.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#36

Post by ProAm »

macinjosh wrote: post #21
ProAm wrote: post #6

Two reasons, One) Apple is currently a lifestyle company and not a technology company so AI is well outside their wheelhouse in what they have spent the last 5 years doing. Two) Apple is never really bleeding edge with it's products, it waits to see what the industry is doing and then subsequently tries to take something and make it better, something tough to do with AI/ML. You can't really just take someone's idea a…

Lifestyle company? What does that even mean? If Apple isn't a tech company I don't know what is. They design their own processors, programming languages, operating systems, web browser, batteries, etc. Sounds like a tech company to me.

The last few years of their 'tech' have been less than inspiring... They have focused on Apple becoming part of your life with a watch or a touchbar and not updating their hardware and software with anything that moves the needle (AppleTV languishing, Siri a joke compared to Amazon, Google and even Microsoft, MacBook Pros barely updated after years of neglect, MacPro potentially on the horizon for a reasonable update in 2018 after years of nothing. and now HomePod is basically a boombox that connects to the internet...not really a stellar new product especially without AI). This is clearly evident with them in scramble mode with the last several press/developer conferences & intentional leaks (how often has Apple mentioned products that are no where close to shipping?), they are in triage mode. I still feel T.Cook will be out in ~ 2 years.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#37

Post by macinjosh »

ProAm wrote: post #36
macinjosh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifestyle company? What does that even mean? If Apple isn't a tech company I don't know what is. They design their own processors, programming languages, operating systems, web browser, batteries, etc. Sounds like a tech company to me.

The last few years of their 'tech' have been less than inspiring... They have focused on Apple becoming part of your life with a watch or a touchbar and not updating their hardware and software with anything that moves the needle (AppleTV languishing, Siri a joke compared to Amazon, Google and even Microsoft, MacBook Pros barely updated after years of neglect, MacPro potentially on the horizon for a reasonable update…

ok

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#38

Post by throwanem »

BoorishBears wrote: post #34
macinjosh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The glib response is to point out the difference between Apple's and Google's business models. Apple makes money by selling devices, Google sells ads (i.e. sells their customers' data to advertisers).

And that Apple is the OEM behind the device that runs their OS, and Google (usually) isn't.

Also that Android only gained the ability to enforce iOS-style fine-grained app permissions (prompting on first use for access to camera, location, etc., instead of a blanket grant at install time) one major version ago, which means that many if not most users can't actually get the benefit without buying a newer phone.

I gather there are some questions around the strength of its app sandboxing as well, but I can't speak to that at all. Perhaps someone better informed will do so.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#39

Post by lqdc13 »

__jal wrote: post #20
macinjosh wrote: post #3

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

Can't claim to be a fanboy, but I am a longtime user[1], and this is the primary reason I stick to them for my phone. I frankly can't imagine using Android the way I use my Iphone - the privacy invasions considered acceptable are well in to the "no go" range for me, before even getting to the malware that pass for "free apps". If I were somehow forced to use Android, I'm pretty sure I'd treat it as an adversarial dev…

Not sure how you use your iphone or what you would need from a smartphone, but I don't understand the distinction.

Apps like Lyft, Yelp and Uber already know where you are so you can't use those.

You're left with maps and browser. People tend to use google maps and Waze on iPhone anyway so that point is gone as well. If they use Apple maps, I am not convinced that apple doesn't store location history.

So then you're left with a browser. Android lets Firefox run its own browser engine and you can install all the privacy extensions there.

On the other hand, with Android it's possible to take privacy a lot more seriously. Lineage OS lets you have much more fine-grained controls over all the apps and you can forego the whole google services privacy menace.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#40

Post by NumberSix »

Regarding privacy, when human beings meet a new person, they do not need tons of data about that person to understand their spoken language. We learn English or any other language once and then rarely need to adapt to new people, unless they have a strong accent or speak a truly different dialect of the language. This demonstrates that the much touted speech recognition technologies from Google, Amazon, and Apple do not match human level performance. Are they really exceeding the marginal performance of the Hidden Markov Model based Dragon Naturally Speaking which took around two months of training to achieve its maximum accuracy ten years ago? Or are they just running similar models with huge numbers of adjustable parameters tuned to each user on the "cloud?"

If Apple invested in genuinely new, creative AI technologies that matched human level speech recognition and other tasks then they could preserve their purported emphasis on privacy. They would not need to collect huge amounts of personal data on most customers, unlike Google or Amazon.

Post reply on HN