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

The iPhone's Last Stand?

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 245 posts

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#51

Post by detourdog »

technothrasher wrote: post #42
Forgeties79 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not religious but there’s a significant difference here. Burden of proof is on the person making the assertion in both cases, but we can’t prove without a doubt that god doesn’t exist even if we don’t feel there’s enough evidence to suggest he is. There is, however, concrete evidence the earth isn’t flat, so no matter who the burden is on it’s demonstrably false. Put another way: You can concretely observe withou…

I don't think you've thought through what you're trying to assert. A god could make you believe anything they wanted to about the earth. So if you cannot disprove a god, then you cannot disprove the theory that the earth is flat.

I’m not sure you thought this through. Why would G-d want to or care to make one have thoughts.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#52

Post by simonh »

threetonesun wrote: post #10
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #7

i was under the impression that the 2024 apple intelligence rollout was something of a victory: Apple realized that the majority of people don't actually want this stuff forced on them at the os level, and the ai maximalists all used apple anyways via clawbot (including purchasing an additional apple device, the mini!) because of apples non-ai-specific commitment to phone computer interop. Certainly the copilot butto…

I say this every time: the average person never wants to hear the letters A and I. Not because it has a negative connotation, but because they don’t care how their phone gets them an answer to “when is my dentist appointment” they just want it to do it.

Yep, by using the terms intelligence, and occasionally Apple Intelligence and not AI[1], they get to talk about these features in a way that don't trigger an automatic mental gag reflex. The fact they cottoned on to this 2 years ago is actually pretty impressive.

[1] https://x.com/ArtemR/status/2056961743142957143

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#53

Post by mcculley »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #11
wiseowise wrote: post #2

iPhone's last stand? More like Microsoft's last stand. Nobody wants their garbage hardware and software outside of enterprise shmucks more interested in filling their pockets with fat contract money than delivering value. > The reason is obvious when you think about it: enterprises are paying for their employees’ time, so of course they are willing to pay for tools that make those employees more productive Is that wh…

> What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids? brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.

> capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge

No. Lots of knowledge is still behind paywalls or not yet digitized. Some models have been trained on books that we cannot search or download.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#54

Post by sharpshift »

saberience wrote: post #9

Last Stand? This is rather strong language and overselling the situation, for clicks I guess. You might re-title the article instead, "The iPhone holds its ground", and it would be a more realistic title. But perhaps garnering less clicks. I've always thought Ben Thompson is strong on enterprise and b2b topics but super weak on everything consumer related, he simply doesn't seem to understand consumer behavior (he ha…

[dead]

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#56

Post by mohsen1 »

saberience wrote: post #9

Last Stand? This is rather strong language and overselling the situation, for clicks I guess. You might re-title the article instead, "The iPhone holds its ground", and it would be a more realistic title. But perhaps garnering less clicks. I've always thought Ben Thompson is strong on enterprise and b2b topics but super weak on everything consumer related, he simply doesn't seem to understand consumer behavior (he ha…

I get the criticism and all your previous judgments samples are valid. I also agree that title is click-bait BUT:

I know people are desperate for a Siri that works. The convince of just talking to your phone is priceless. If Apple gets this right, this is a huge deal – which it seems they are on the right track.

People are still talking to Siri for basic stuff like timers and alarms because it works, doesn't need an app, works when phone is locked or even away from you. If this works for more complex tasks like texting and general questions Apple will have the upper hand over Meta and Google in this new way of using computers/internet.

Apple also took a very clever approach for Capex and general AI strategy. Everyone knows that the best intelligence will eventually become a commodity and Apple decided to step aside from this expensive experiment. That's worth pointing out too.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#57

Post by iamnothere »

skywhopper wrote: post #40
cultofmetatron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids? brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.

I think you have the causation backwards: we have people thinking the world is flat because they can access the sum total of human knowledge, both true and false. There’s so much available, with similar production values, that going down brainwashing rabbit holes like flat earth, anti-vax, and more is a lot easier than it has ever been before.

Let’s be real, some people are going to believe absurd things even if you strap them in a chair Clockwork Orange style and force them to consume your favorite propaganda 24/7.

There is no way to “align” human brains to your preferences. The Soviets tried it, the Chinese tried it, the Americans tried it. Nobody succeeded. The best you can do is attempt to sway the masses, but you’d better rely on positive messaging, because mass culture’s failure modes are even scarier than small subcultures.

Attempting to stamp out competing worldviews leads a certain kind of (relatively common) person to dig even harder for forbidden knowledge. If you’re not careful this will lead people directly to the arms of your geopolitical enemies, as it’s not possible to fully stamp out their narratives—they have a big budget!

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#58

Post by wett »

thunky wrote: post #47
cultofmetatron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a callous view of people. Who's your benchmark? TikTok addicted kids? brother, we are all walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket thats capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge and yet we're still stuck with people who think the earth is flat.

> brother, Why am seeing "brother" a lot recently?

It’s kind of a meme

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/my_brother_in_Christ

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#59

Post by iamnothere »

infecto wrote: post #49
sigzero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Maybe you are in bubble? Looks like it’s really old slang and I have not heard that word in the last decade in Silicon Valley or elsewhere.

It was never common slang. A few journalists tried to force it to be “a thing” but it never caught on, because forced memes never work.

(I do hate camera glasses though.)

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#60

Post by move-on-by »

gohome190 wrote: post #3

> Apple is targeting consumers, for whom traditional chatbot functionality is probably sufficient for the vast majority of their AI needs. I disagree strongly here. The chatbot is the furthest thing from sufficient for the average consumer. Take the newly announced feature that groups your compromised passwords together and offers to agentically change them all for you. Really cool! Could you do that via a chatbot in…

I doubt the ‘average consumer’ is even using a password manager, let alone going to change their password because of something so common place as it being compromised.
Post reply on HN