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

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

#311

Post by walterbell »

whizzter wrote: post #178
walterbell wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia-Mediatek Arm laptops will compete with Qualcomm and Apple, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/03/16/the-arm-i... [WSJ] sources expect.. first units in H1 2026, with GTC as the most likely unveiling stage.. NPU reportedly exceeds both Intel and AMD’s current neural processing units.. If the integrated GPU delivers RTX 5070-class performance in a thin laptop form factor, it would eliminate the need for…

If they can get Valve/Steam for an OS that handles most games well that could in fact be huge if the pricepoint is a bit lower initially but with plenty of unified RAM (both for AI but also games). That said, gaming laptops cooling issues are so often around the GPU so it'd also require a seasoned manufacturer to make it correctly.

[dead]

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

#312

Post by lern_too_spel »

aflag wrote: post #173
andsoitis wrote: post #140

Using the author’s logic, it is Google then that will lead. Unlike Apple, they have even more devices in the field PLUS they have strong models PLUS Apple uses Google models.

Google is an advertisement company at the end of the day and that's a conflict of interest with user privacy.

So is Apple. Worse, Apple is a company that is comfortable with the idea of restricting user control, so you can't get privacy even if you want it.

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

#313

Post by Ifkaluva »

I’m confused why he keeps calling out “the Mac Mini craze after claw went viral”. I thought the various versions of claw used remote models, not local models, and I thought the point of using a Mac mini was that it can send and receive iMessages, not anything about the hardware.

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

#314

Post by jacobgold »

Traster wrote: post #287

People can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the core logic behind OpenAI's valuation was essentially that AI would work like search. Google had the best search engine, it became a centre of gravity that sucked everything in and suddenly network effects meant it was the centre of the universe. There seem to be 2 big problems with that though. The first is that for search, queries are both demand for the product an…

"Google had the best search engine, it became a centre of gravity..."

Almost no one made serious attempts at competing with Google. And not because of network effects or any other hard blocker. In the early 2000s, the industry just wasn't mature enough to heavily fund serious competition.

By the 2020s the industry has funding and founders ready to jump on any huge opportunity that presents itself.

There are of course downsides, but this competitive landscape in AI seems like a huge net win for users in terms of lower costs and faster progress.

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

#315

Post by lucketone »

stavros wrote: post #253
throw0101d wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The simple fact is that a 16 GB RAM stick costs much less than the development time to make the app run on less. The costs are borne by different people: development by the company, RAM sticks by the customer. A company is potentially (silently?) adding to the cost of the product/service that the customer has to bear by needed to have more RAM (or have the same amount, but can't do as much with it).

Yep, and since companies care about TCO, they reward the software with the lower TCO, which happens to be the one that uses more RAM but is cheaper to produce.

Until RAM prices increases significantly.

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

#316

Post by nedt »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #313

I’m confused why he keeps calling out “the Mac Mini craze after claw went viral”. I thought the various versions of claw used remote models, not local models, and I thought the point of using a Mac mini was that it can send and receive iMessages, not anything about the hardware.

You have a lot of private data. So running it locally makes you use less credits and then you also don't have your emails as training data for cloud models.

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

#319

Post by GeekyBear »

HerbManic wrote: post #4
grtteee wrote: 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.

Pretty much it. That said, they did try to appease the markets by announcing 'Apple Intelligence' so they didn't appear to be behind everyone. They did do the smart thing of not throwing too much capital behind it. Once the hype crumbles, they will be able to do something amazing with this tech. That will be a few years off but probably worth the wait.

Apple's Neural Engine and the CoreML framework to leverage it are almost a decade old now.

Apple Intelligence was a rebrand, and Apple has made some unique decisions rolling it out.

For instance, the new chatbot version of Siri's hallucinations were seen as unacceptable, so its release was delayed.

Is a chatbot that provides false information regularly really an advancement?

Apple chose not to do photorealistic generative images, so they can't be used for deepfakes.

Apple chose not to add a feature to write text for you, just one to clean up what you write, because they don't want to help kids in school cheat.

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

#320

Post by m3kw9 »

Looks like Apple fell into a winning/winnable position in the AI wars. Their privacy/safety first culture is the cause of them not embracing AI as effectively as other more maverick styles. Their AI was always hindered by privacy, and local first AI is their savour.
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