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

It's the “hardware”, stupid

haebom.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 124 posts

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#111

Post by upboundspiral »

bee_rider wrote: post #39
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #8

> No matter how beautiful its design, it's meaningless without the software to back it up. Word. I worked as a software developer, for hardware companies, most of my career. Most of the upper management came from hardware, and consistently treated software as an afterthought. That may change, this time. Different breed of top managers.

It’s weird because in a hardware company the software becomes a cost. In a software company the software is a magical money printer with zero unit costs.

Nvidia would like a word. If a hardware manufacturer releases software and creates a strong bedrock for others to build on their work then its clearly a strong asset. Granted, this is not at all easy to do, and initial investment into it may be large, but when it works it pays off immensely.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#112

Post by [deleted] »

dzdt wrote: post #75
supportengineer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An "AI Hardware" device that needs a network connection, and makes API calls to the mother ship, in order to accomplish anything, is not interesting . It's a Raspberry Pi. On the other hand, a device that could work offline is interesting. One that could work in a zombie apocalypse is even more interesting. Especially if it was solar powered and contained the knowledge needed to rebuild society.

I don't think that passes the toothbrush test. I don't need to survive a zombie apocalypse every morning.

[deleted]

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#113

Post by mrandish »

rjsw wrote: post #109
mrandish wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not comfortable with the word 'visionary' because it's ill-defined and unscoped. So I don't use that word because I don't think in those terms. This may be because most of my later career was spent leading teams conceiving and shipping cutting-edge tech products in new categories - sometimes launching those categories - occasionally with historically notable success, usually with middling success and sometimes wi…

I had been working with similar hardware and software at the time. The visionary bit for me was Jobs getting a US phone company to agree to a data plan that made financial sense to potential users.

Although not many people use the word 'visionary' for business model innovation, I agree it was a crucial element in the iPhone's viability. It's clear the earlier 2005 collaboration with Motorola on the ROKR (aka the "iTunes Phone") is where Apple learned a lot about the broader ecosystem gaps which would need to be addressed for a phone to succeed.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#115

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

embedding-shape wrote: post #77
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss WAP browsing. By necessity, it stripped out all the "advanced" design bullshit that made web pages suck. Just a couple links and buttons is fast and reliable.

Yeah, me to in a way, browsing pages where every link is centered, shit quality porn ads everywhere and deep down in the pages you could finally find that .jar link to the cracked game you were out after. Trying to remember any of the WAP websites I frequented at the time, but seem to recall any by name or address...

Weirdly enough, I think a weather report website was my most frequented WAP site. And maybe Slashdot? And I guess downloading .wav clips of South Park quotes. Later on, a social media site called BrightKite, where you'd submit your location and talk to other people who'd been there, post pictures of the place (via MMS-to-Email). There wasn't a whole lot to do on the 00's internet.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#116

Post by jimbokun »

mrandish wrote: post #95
jimbokun wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It advanced the "premium pocket phone" bar up to a new level but I didn't see it as unusually visionary. Have you ever encountered a product you saw as "unusually visionary"?

I'm not comfortable with the word 'visionary' because it's ill-defined and unscoped. So I don't use that word because I don't think in those terms. This may be because most of my later career was spent leading teams conceiving and shipping cutting-edge tech products in new categories - sometimes launching those categories - occasionally with historically notable success, usually with middling success and sometimes wi…

So you just don’t like the word “visionary”. Got it.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#117

Post by jimbokun »

rustystump wrote: post #97
jimbokun wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs and Ive were at the core of all the product design. There were multiple articles about Jobs spending most of his day with Jony looking at prototypes Jony's team had devised and giving critiques and feedback. Then they would iterate on what Jobs said. Of course the engineering team had to figure out how to make Jobs suggestions real within the physical and technological constraints they were working with. > I thi…

I dont think jobs was necessary a taste savant as he was notorious for claiming other peoples ideas as his own. But he was willing to walk over anyone if he thought it would make a better product be they another company, his board, or subordinates. Nothing was sacred. Ives is not that person he is too nice.

That’s the whole point of being a “taste savant”. Recognizing good ideas when you see them.

Jobs wasn’t the one producing the designs. He was critiquing them and pointing out what he liked.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#118

Post by embedding-shape »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #115
embedding-shape wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, me to in a way, browsing pages where every link is centered, shit quality porn ads everywhere and deep down in the pages you could finally find that .jar link to the cracked game you were out after. Trying to remember any of the WAP websites I frequented at the time, but seem to recall any by name or address...

Weirdly enough, I think a weather report website was my most frequented WAP site. And maybe Slashdot? And I guess downloading .wav clips of South Park quotes. Later on, a social media site called BrightKite, where you'd submit your location and talk to other people who'd been there, post pictures of the place (via MMS-to-Email). There wasn't a whole lot to do on the 00's internet.

> There wasn't a whole lot to do on the 00's internet

Maybe depends on the country but 00's in Sweden on the internet was OK, lots of social places and other nerdery going on that was easy to get into, granted you had an internet connection. LunarStorm (originally "Stajlplajs" I think) must have been popular around 2002 already, and I remember that from my teenage age group, most of them were signed up to Lunarstorm, even though most of us were still on modems, 240p webcams and white/yellow desktop computers.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#119

Post by xorcist »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #93
jimbokun wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs and Ive were at the core of all the product design. There were multiple articles about Jobs spending most of his day with Jony looking at prototypes Jony's team had devised and giving critiques and feedback. Then they would iterate on what Jobs said. Of course the engineering team had to figure out how to make Jobs suggestions real within the physical and technological constraints they were working with. > I thi…

Maybe Altman will serve that taste savant role, and they will be a good combo. I'm optimistic they will produce something that: * doesn't have ads, (we are the customer, not the product) * makes our lives more fluid and easy * delivers on the vision for what computers always could be Jarvis, please make me a sandwich.

> Maybe Altman will serve that taste savant role

Was it the eyeball scanners that gave you this idea?

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#120

Post by iamleppert »

supportengineer wrote: post #72
starky wrote: post #5

The article buries the lede on the only point that matters with these "AI" hardware devices. They need to solve a problem their customers have, and all the devices these companies have released so far don't do anything that a smartphone can't easily do.

An "AI Hardware" device that needs a network connection, and makes API calls to the mother ship, in order to accomplish anything, is not interesting . It's a Raspberry Pi. On the other hand, a device that could work offline is interesting. One that could work in a zombie apocalypse is even more interesting. Especially if it was solar powered and contained the knowledge needed to rebuild society.

Your market is going to be doomsday preppers. Can you imagine starting a business in that market? I bet the trade shows are filled with bunker developers, underground infrastructure dealers and arms dealers.

I'm imagining a stratified market with two distinct customer personas - very rich and paranoid, and very poor paranoid.

Have fun!

Post reply on HN