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The iPhone's Last Stand?

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Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#171

Post by bigyabai »

Aperocky wrote: post #165

> Microsoft put forth a vision for a new ecosystem of hardware devices under the banner of Project Solara While I don't necessarily disagree with their vision but if implemented like "Copilot for Windows" I don't see me or anyone wanting to go anywhere near it. Apple being slow is just fine, at least they didn't launch "Copilot for Mac". Sometimes the lack of certain feature is the feature.

> Sometimes the lack of certain feature is the feature.

Sometimes it's a curse. Apple might be a 2-3 trillion dollar business right now, if they didn't refuse to sign CUDA drivers for their ARM servers.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#172

Post by jamothy »

827a wrote: post #164

You cannot trust companies to communicate an unbiased vision of the future, because they will always build what they're capable of selling. Microsoft and Meta are incapable of selling phones and laptops; they're certainly capable of building them, but few people will buy them. So instead Meta builds smart-glasses and Microsoft presents this weird vision of "connected thin devices" by keeping the hardware itself very…

"You cannot trust companies to communicate an unbiased vision of the future, because they will always build what they're capable of selling." This just rewrote my brain, thank you.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#173

Post by [deleted] »

nl wrote: post #81
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…

Whether or not consumers wanted it, Apple failed to deliver. And that wasn't because they were listening or anything - they just couldn't deliver. Apple doesn't leak much but there has been coverage of this: https://spyglass.org/apple-ai-fail/ (April 2025) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-fumbled-siris-... (paywalled) https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/06/07/one-fateful-meeti... (2 days ago)

[deleted]

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#174

Post by MoonWalk »

827a wrote: post #164

You cannot trust companies to communicate an unbiased vision of the future, because they will always build what they're capable of selling. Microsoft and Meta are incapable of selling phones and laptops; they're certainly capable of building them, but few people will buy them. So instead Meta builds smart-glasses and Microsoft presents this weird vision of "connected thin devices" by keeping the hardware itself very…

Based on Microsoft's ever-more-fetid output over the last two decades, they can't sell self-respecting people jack squat.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#175

Post by GeekyBear »

daft_pink wrote: post #144

It kind of reminds me of Windows mobile and blackberry and palm os where apple was clearly behind but they eventually caught up. The first iPhone didn’t even have apps! I think agents are scary and complicated and dangerous enough that it is genuinely scary to give an agent an instruction like go buy this ticket. It’s okay and apple can easily simplify and eventually win. The mainstream hasn’t really started using ag…

> I think agents are scary and complicated and dangerous enough that it is genuinely scary to give an agent an instruction like go buy this ticket.

Once again, early 1990's General Magic looks prescient.

They were working on smartphones with agents capable of completing remote transactions before we had wireless data networks.

> General Magic: The Greatest Tech Company You’ve Never Heard Of

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tuFl4WEXBrk

> allowing end-user equipment with limited capabilities to upload Telescript programs to servers to allow them to take advantage of the server's capabilities. Telescript could even migrate a running program... transfer it to another Telescript engine (on a device or a server) to continue execution, and finally return to the originating client or server device to deliver its output.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescript_(programming_langu...

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#176

Post by specproc »

827a wrote: post #164

You cannot trust companies to communicate an unbiased vision of the future, because they will always build what they're capable of selling. Microsoft and Meta are incapable of selling phones and laptops; they're certainly capable of building them, but few people will buy them. So instead Meta builds smart-glasses and Microsoft presents this weird vision of "connected thin devices" by keeping the hardware itself very…

I love my Surface laptop. I use arch, BTW.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#177

Post by woah »

827a wrote: post #164

You cannot trust companies to communicate an unbiased vision of the future, because they will always build what they're capable of selling. Microsoft and Meta are incapable of selling phones and laptops; they're certainly capable of building them, but few people will buy them. So instead Meta builds smart-glasses and Microsoft presents this weird vision of "connected thin devices" by keeping the hardware itself very…

At the same time, the only things that get built and sold are the things that someone is capable of building and selling

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#178

Post by endemic »

analogpixel wrote: post #80

Who is paying for all of this AI usage on the Iphone? I didn't see anything about a new AI subscription (maybe I missed it?), and I doubt Apple will want to pay million/billions a year to do it indefinitely.

I mean, they're already subsidizing some of the phone services (e.g. maps) that users expect to have.

Re: The iPhone's Last Stand?

#180

Post by mvdtnz »

Gigachad wrote: post #14
threetonesun wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least for consumer software, AI is synonymous with annoying nagware forcing itself in your way.

I think this is the jaded HN way of seeing AI in products. It's not reality.

I work on a popular consumer product (from well before AI existed) which is incorporating more and more AI features. When we release AI features they receive far more attention and usage than traditional features.

Users who interact with AI features are much "stickier" (more likely to still be users months from now). Free users who interact with AI features are much more likely to convert to paid users. AI features get more press, more online comments, more usage, more conversions. If this wasn't true we wouldn't be spending so much money on it.

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