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Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

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Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#341
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reliance on crusty old ass applications like those on Windows is actually kinda depressing. macOS is the most consistent OS and Windows the least [1]. With the exception of IrfanView I find neither of those apps particularly crusty though. There's https://imageglass.org I personally moved from macOS to KDE Plasma and I'm a happy camper as long as I stay with Plasma/Qt apps. [1] https://ntdev.blog/2021/02/06/sta…

VLC is pretty damn crusty, especially to anyone not familiar with that particular....design ethos. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible endeavor and the developers deserve endless praise, but for people that aren't already familiar with navigating things like GIMP, KDE, Open/LibreOffice, it's not especially welcoming.

Have you used VLC on MacOS tho? Full screen video looks very slick and is tough to differentiate from native quicktime other than having support for more codecs and features.

The non full screen UI is a little more crusty but still looks better than the windows version imo.

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#342
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty obvious after their data grab with the new Outlook. They destroyed the built-in app which I used all the time just to try to get all of my emails.

> It’s pretty obvious after their data grab with the new Outlook. What did they do this time?

20231128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38441710 New Outlook is good, both for yourself and 766 third parties

20231110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38217457 Microsoft steals access data: Beware of the new Outlook (German) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38219568 dupe/English)

20231109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38212453 Windows 11 Update 23H2 is stealing users' IMAP credentials

> the new Outlook is a thin wrapper around the cloud version, so the IMAP sync happens in the cloud, not locally

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't disagree more. Notepad is a place to dump snippets of unformatted text, for a temporary duration unless I explicity save the file. I already didn't like that they added the tabs feature and autosave recently. If I want to do writing I'll use one of the 6 tools on my PC more suited to that task.

As a counterpoint, I'm on macOS where their latest AI writing tools are now implemented system wide. I also use TextEdit (approximately equivalent to Windows Notepad) and the Stickies app for similar text dumping ground behavior and yet, having the AI writing tools available on those two apps is incredibly useful. I often don't use it at all, but there are things I want to run through it and not having to move the te…

Apple’s AI is way less intrusive.

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#344

This seems to be a common trend everywhere. Instead of improving core functionality they add the latest buzzword tech, no matter it make sense or not. I am user of GaiaGPS to plan outdoors trips. Same there: the app is good but has some problems. Instead of fixing the problems they added social functionality which nobody really wants.

Hang on - notepad is the perfect place for a "rewrite my text" feature. And clearly its a useful too in a writing app that users would like. I get your complaint in general, but it does not seem like this is a good example of throwing random unrelated stuff in.

> Hang on - notepad is the perfect place for a "rewrite my text" feature. And clearly its a useful too in a writing app that users would like.

I use notepad to write quick notes or to strip formating from text.

(and i hate with a passion when a program tries to be "smart" - hello clippy)

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a 15% reduction on intention to buy (on the TV case, 20% on the car) just by putting AI there on the name is a really big deal. That's about half of the deviation on the data. The ugly is that it's a self-reported poll, but it's a well run self-reported poll, with a large effect, and good statistical relevance. The actual article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19368623.2024.2...

Ooof, boy is Apple in for a disaster with their iPhone and Mac products! Has someone told them? Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, and all of the other big companies as well! They're doomed! Putting an amorphous "AI-powered" on an imaginary product is nonsensical, and doesn't carry over to the conclusion that "people hate AI". Yes, I would be wary of a "AI-powered coffee maker" or an "AI-powered toothbrush" because t…

> Ooof, boy is Apple in for a disaster with their iPhone and Mac products!

Considering how fanatical Apple users can be about literally anything Apple throws at them they were not excited about AI

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/25-of-smartphone-owners-don...

> Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, and all of the other big companies as well! They're doomed!

Many of them are certainly in a bit of trouble because they've poured obscene amounts of money into AI and it really hasn't turned into anything people really want. They keep forcing AI at people in every product they can because they're hoping that eventually something will stick and people will fawn over it, but so far people just haven't found AI to be all that useful, they don't trust it (https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2023/06/05/in-ai-w...) and they have privacy concerns (with good reason).

It's great that you've found it useful. I know a few people who get some value out of it, even if only as a toy, but there's no killer app for AI certainly nothing that justifies the insane costs that went into it. Most of the time it's just getting in people's way and it's largely been ignored by the public (https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/artificial-inte...)

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on - notepad is the perfect place for a "rewrite my text" feature. And clearly its a useful too in a writing app that users would like. I get your complaint in general, but it does not seem like this is a good example of throwing random unrelated stuff in.

Word is the perfect place for it? Or OneNote. This would be like if Apple added AI rewrite to TextEdit instead of Apple Notes. Notepad's only job is to open text files as fast as possible.

One note is a shitshow. The idea is good, the implementation is a disaster.

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#348
post #337

This seems to be a common trend everywhere. Instead of improving core functionality they add the latest buzzword tech, no matter it make sense or not. I am user of GaiaGPS to plan outdoors trips. Same there: the app is good but has some problems. Instead of fixing the problems they added social functionality which nobody really wants.

> Instead of improving core functionality Maybe taking a step back here, what core functionality is missing from notepad? I see this as a fairly feature complete tool for a core set of behaviors already.

Telemetry ? Hamburger menu ? No scrollbars ? /s

The possibilities are infinite.

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#349

This seems to be a common trend everywhere. Instead of improving core functionality they add the latest buzzword tech, no matter it make sense or not. I am user of GaiaGPS to plan outdoors trips. Same there: the app is good but has some problems. Instead of fixing the problems they added social functionality which nobody really wants.

I guess it's a good signal for when a niche is opening for someone to develop a better product. That's probably a reason why competitors like onX have sprung up recently. (Although I haven't used onX so I don't know if it's actually better or not.) Also with Gaia it feels like very single year they just have to tweak and change the interface to the point where nothing is easy or intuitive anymore. It's like designers…

> I guess it's a good signal for when a niche is opening for someone to develop a better product

better is the enemy of good. /s

Re: Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't disagree more. Notepad is a place to dump snippets of unformatted text, for a temporary duration unless I explicity save the file. I already didn't like that they added the tabs feature and autosave recently. If I want to do writing I'll use one of the 6 tools on my PC more suited to that task.

As a counterpoint, I'm on macOS where their latest AI writing tools are now implemented system wide. I also use TextEdit (approximately equivalent to Windows Notepad) and the Stickies app for similar text dumping ground behavior and yet, having the AI writing tools available on those two apps is incredibly useful. I often don't use it at all, but there are things I want to run through it and not having to move the te…

The program that's roughly equivalent to TextEdit is WordPad, and Microsoft is in the middle of removing it.

WordPad would be a much better place to shove in a complex feature like AI.

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