avon b7

ssfe11 said:

This ruling IMO is meaningless. All this fuss over nothing. No one is going to leave the walled garden which offers the utmost in security, ease of use and convenience to go to some 3rd party and keep adding in different subscriptions everywhere. Not going to happen. Also you think Epic and big established companies iare going to reduce prices for the consumer? No way! They are keeping all that profit so again why would the consumer ever leave?!. Plus let Epic get a taste of all the logistics and customer service expenses required. They’ll be running back to Apple. This ruling is a complete non event. Have a great day!

It's not meaningless IMO and you are probably right, most people will stick with Apple solutions. No issues there. 

However, anti-steering measures were deemed anti-competitive. That is important. 

Further afield, in places like the EU, the changes are more far reaching. The key is that practices that stifle competition are being examined and users are now getting choice. It is up to them to decide what to do with it. 

All of Apple's concessions to date have been due to pressure from different parties. That is leading to new legislative approaches and rulings (including fines). 

Without them nothing would change. 

slurpy said:

What a disgusting ruling, that only takes into account the whims of these 2 companies (Epic and Spotify) and not the billions of users that use Apple products, and the user experience. What the fuck is in it for Apple, if companies can use Apple's massive platform, which Apple has invested tens of billions of dollars in and is an incredibly lucrative storefront, if devs can just use it as a free funnel for their own paid products?

Also can't wait for App Store listings to be spammed with a fuckload of links and buttons, making it as trashy as most ad invested websites. Insane how a judge can make a decision like this, that materially compromises the user experience of anyone who uses an Apple device, while likely not understanding most aspects and implications behind it. 

Why the fuck should devs be able to advertise to billions of people using Apple's storefront and get a free ride? Why are they entitled to that? That concept is insane in the real world. 

You are completely ignoring the underlying reason for her anger. What is your opinion of that? 

Apple likes to say it has 'values' (famously when the Irish state aid case hit the news). How do those values fit in with what the judge is accusing Apple of? Is that OK? 

The judge heard the arguments and reached a conclusion. I can understand that you personally don't like it but I wouldn't call it 'disgusting'. She largely sided with Apple, too IIRC. 

foregoneconclusion said:

LLM programs are relatively easy to develop. That's why there are so many different companies that offer their own LLM programs. It's really the training model that's important. The LLM is worthless without it. And the training model is mainly a euphemism for a gargantuan database. That gargantuan database can either be created ethically (verified sources with appropriate permissions) or unethically (unverified sources without permission). 

So all the talk about Apple being "behind" in LLM based AI is mostly blather since the LLM part is largely inconsequential versus the database being used and whether it's legal. 

Apple was (and still is) behind.

We need to accept that. There is enough evidence of that now.

They didn't have anything when Gen AI came to market. They deliberately avoided any mention of 'AI' at the WWDC when people were expecting to hear about it and deliberately chose to  refer to ML instead. The following year (and now unable to avoid the term due to all the progress made by Gen AI) we got 'Apple Intelligence' but zero of that shipped on the 2024 AI iPhone. It was to come out over the release cycle of iOS.

Almost all previous phones were not elegible for Apple Intelligence (another HUGE sign that AI of this kind just wasn't on the front burner until it was far too late). Then we got news of the delay to the enhanced Siri and then news of the AI executive shakeup. Then we got rumours of Apple trying to create its own AI training hardware but together with reports saying it was buying Nvidia hardware. If they truly weren't behind they would have had at least a plan to have everything in place long before now. 

Nothing in all of this points to Apple being even remotely catching up with the almost daily upgrades to swatches of LLMs and Tiny LLMs.

No doubt it is desperately doing all it can but that doesn't mean it's not behind. 

LLMs are anything but inconsequential as without them the data they feed off is just that - data.

Yes. There are ongoing debates and even  challenges as to the ethical and legal aspects and they may prove consequential down the line but that has nothing to do with what is (and has been) available today. The current state of play. 

This year's WWDC is going to be interesting for many reasons and AI is going to be one of them.

I'm not a fan of Gruber but he did ruffle some feathers and point out some uncomfortable Apple Intelligence truths.

I use Perplexity Pro which has proven to be ultra reliable for my needs. If Siri ever reaches that level it would be a true milestone. 

danox said:

blastdoor said:

Apple co-developed PPC along with IBM and Motorola. They used it for a little over 10 years. PPC fell behind Intel to a point that Apple had to make the somewhat embarrassing admission that they had no choice but to switch to Intel.

Apple not only survived that switch, but thrived. And eventually developed their own CPU that now completely beats Intel. 

I predict that a similar story will unfold with AI. Apple had Siri and various other AI/ML technologies, but it fell behind. So now they must somewhat embarrassingly rely on external suppliers. But in doing so, they will make their products better and will thrive. Eventually they will develop a superior AI stack internally. Maybe in 5 years this time instead of 15.

Isn’t Apple trying to operate on the edge with their Apple Intelligence and internal on device AI solutions? In comparison to the competition, which is just planning to phone home (always be connected) to the super computers, after all Meta, Google and Microsoft want to collect as much information as possible why would they design anything on the edge.

In the near future It will be fun to see the actual comparisons when you turn off the internet connection and run Robbie the AI agent and who can answer or perform that test will be similar to unplugging a MacBook Pro from the wall and doing the same with a Microsoft PC laptop, and seeing which one actually still performs at full speed and also seeing which one has longer battery life under normal usage, Apples mission hardware, software and privacy is a much harder/longer way to go than their so-called competition.

AI has always been about on-device, edge and cloud processing. The difference has been about what is feasible at any given time. 

Cars aren't taking life saving decisions by sending them to the cloud and back, for example. The sensing, interpretation and result are done on-device (the car).

Interpreting responses based on communication with traffic lights is done through edge processing combined with on device processing. There is no need for that to be done in the cloud. 

Non-time/privacy critical processing can be done in the cloud. 

The above also applies to handsets. Things are done where they are best done depending on multiple factors.

As with most things today (in the digital age) losing your internet connection will render most devices virtually useless and that includes iPhones with even with on-device processing.

Bill Gates might disagree but the more memory you have available, the better. Anything with a limited amount of memory will hit a wall sooner or later. 

On device processing is a good goal/option but everyone knows this and is working on it. Cloud and edge processing are also key, though.

Just for clarity, I use the term 'edge' to refer to the ICT concept of near-to-device processing without needing a central server.

It can also mean on-device processing but I prefer to say 'on-device' in those cases. 

I have looooong criticised Apple's business model on this point.

It makes all the sense in the world to stagger releases for the reasons stated in the article. Plus, it would keep the marketing people happy with something new to push every few months and draw attention away from competing releases.

It would also be a positive in terms of iOS rollout issues.