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Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

adlrocha.substack.com

61–70 of 402 posts

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#61
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like companies forcing their newest features on me noisily and constantly trying to ship new features and see what sticks so you can't trust whether a feature advertised one week will even be there the next. However, I have even less patience for companies forcing paid-for third-party ads down my throat on a paid product. Slack at least doesn't sell my eyeballs. Facebook, Twitter, Google's ads are worse to me…

I get it but... well I think of App Store as... a store. I don't have to go there. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the lack of discovery available in the App Store, but I rarely go there. I'm fine with advertising being there. I wish it was better but I'm not offended that there is paid promotion in a store.

Where do you install apps from then?

I get an app recommendation from a friend, I go to the App Store and search for it. I have to be super careful about which link I'm actually clicking on and which app I'm installing, because the App Store is riddled with spam and malware.

I wouldn't mind, except that Apple charge 30% of everything with the justification that they are keeping the ecosystem free of spam and malware...

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wait to understand what the thing is capable of doing My parents use Android to ask “What are the 5 biggest towers in Chicago” or “Remove the people on my picture” while apparently iPhone is only capable of doing “Hey Siri start the Chronometer / There is no contact named Chronometer in your phone”. My iPhone is lagging a ridiculous 10 years behind. It’s just that I don’t trust Google with my credit card.

These are software/cloud features. You can install gemini on iphone if you want to talk about towers in Chicago. The only reason to care about it being OS integrated is to interact with functions of the OS, which siri does fine.

Siri does not do it fine, it's literally the example the above commenter showed.

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local models seem somewhere between 9 and 24 months behind. I'm not saying I won't be impressed with what online models will be able to do in two years, but I'm pretty satisfied with the prediction that I won't really need them in a couple of years.

We still aren't going to be putting 200gb ram on a phone in a couple years to run those local models.

A lot of people are making the mistake of noticing that local models have been 12-24 months behind SotA ones for a good portion of the last couple years, and then drawing a dotted line assuming that continues to hold.

It simply.. doesn't. The SotA models are enormous now, and there's no free lunch on compression/quantization here.

Opus 4.6 capabilities are not coming to your (even 64-128gb) laptop or phone in the popular architecture that current LLMs use.

Now, that doesn't mean that a much narrower-scoped model with very impressive results can't be delivered. But that narrower model won't have the same breadth of knowledge, and TBD if it's possible to get the quality/outcomes seen with these models without that broad "world" knowledge.

It also doesn't preclude a new architecture or other breakthrough. I'm simply stating it doesn't happen with the current way of building these.

edit: forgot to mention the notion of ASIC-style models on a chip. I haven't been following this closely, but last I saw the power requirements are too steep for a mobile device.

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#65
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like companies forcing their newest features on me noisily and constantly trying to ship new features and see what sticks so you can't trust whether a feature advertised one week will even be there the next. However, I have even less patience for companies forcing paid-for third-party ads down my throat on a paid product. Slack at least doesn't sell my eyeballs. Facebook, Twitter, Google's ads are worse to me…

I get it but... well I think of App Store as... a store. I don't have to go there. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the lack of discovery available in the App Store, but I rarely go there. I'm fine with advertising being there. I wish it was better but I'm not offended that there is paid promotion in a store.

>get letter from bank

>"to fix this, please install our app"

>search BankName

>comes up with other banks, BankNames US app (not the country you are in)

>revolut etc (cant use in the country you are in)

>ten minutes later

even worse when its your telecomm telling you to install their Official App so you can pay your bills or they will cut your cellular service, and you cant find it

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it but... well I think of App Store as... a store. I don't have to go there. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the lack of discovery available in the App Store, but I rarely go there. I'm fine with advertising being there. I wish it was better but I'm not offended that there is paid promotion in a store.

Where do you install apps from then? I get an app recommendation from a friend, I go to the App Store and search for it. I have to be super careful about which link I'm actually clicking on and which app I'm installing, because the App Store is riddled with spam and malware. I wouldn't mind, except that Apple charge 30% of everything with the justification that they are keeping the ecosystem free of spam and malware.…

I’ve been installing apps from the App Store for more than a decade and have never ever accidentally downloaded spam or malware. I’m sure it’s there but it’s really not “riddled” with it in my experience searching for apps. What it’s riddled with is subscription-based apps whose free tier is worthless

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it but... well I think of App Store as... a store. I don't have to go there. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the lack of discovery available in the App Store, but I rarely go there. I'm fine with advertising being there. I wish it was better but I'm not offended that there is paid promotion in a store.

>get letter from bank >"to fix this, please install our app" >search BankName >comes up with other banks, BankNames US app (not the country you are in) >revolut etc (cant use in the country you are in) >ten minutes later even worse when its your telecomm telling you to install their Official App so you can pay your bills or they will cut your cellular service, and you cant find it

As someone who recently moved to NL from the US I encounter this issue about once a week and it’s blocking me from doing serious things like paying for parking, taxes, utilities or government services, all of which have apps that are only available on the Dutch app store.

I have a separate Dutch Apple ID I can switch to, but each time I log out I risk accidentally deleting all my data.

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it but... well I think of App Store as... a store. I don't have to go there. I'm actually pretty disappointed in the lack of discovery available in the App Store, but I rarely go there. I'm fine with advertising being there. I wish it was better but I'm not offended that there is paid promotion in a store.

>get letter from bank >"to fix this, please install our app" >search BankName >comes up with other banks, BankNames US app (not the country you are in) >revolut etc (cant use in the country you are in) >ten minutes later even worse when its your telecomm telling you to install their Official App so you can pay your bills or they will cut your cellular service, and you cant find it

That letter from the bank would probably include a QR code linking directly to their app oui?

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#69
post #2

This is the classic apple approach - wait to understand what the thing is capable of doing (aka let others make sunk investments), envision a solution that is way better than the competition and then architect a path to building a leapfrog product that builds a large lead.

When have they done that since the first iPhone in 2007? The watch maybe? Though not sure that's "leapfrog" better than anyone else's smartwatch, but I don't have one so maybe I'm wrong.

Their own chips, vertically integrating.

Re: Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning

#70
post #18
post #12

I've had it turned off since Sequoia, and this I truly appreciate. It hasn't nagged me once to turn it or Siri on, and it isn't mandatory. When I open up JIRA or Slack I am always greeted with multiple new dialogues pointing at some new AI bullshit, in comparison. We hates it precious

I don't like companies forcing their newest features on me noisily and constantly trying to ship new features and see what sticks so you can't trust whether a feature advertised one week will even be there the next. However, I have even less patience for companies forcing paid-for third-party ads down my throat on a paid product. Slack at least doesn't sell my eyeballs. Facebook, Twitter, Google's ads are worse to me…

It's best to avoid App Store and look for apps on Google (with ad blocker).
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