danvm

StrangeDays said:

avon b7 said:

I think it's fair to say that Apple is behind in this area. 

Objectively, this year has been about ChatGPT style usage and Apple hasn't brought anything to market while others have. 

It is also recruiting for specific roles in AI. So far, most of the talk has been only that, talk. 

Talking about ML as they made a point of doing, is stating the obvious here. Who isn't using ML? 

In this case of LLMs on resource strapped devices, again, some manufacturers are already using them. 

A Pangu LLM underpins Huawei's Celia voice assistant on its latest phones. 

I believe Xiaomi is also using LLMs on some of its phones too (although I don't know in which areas). 

The notion of trying to do more with less is an industry constant. Research never stops in that area and in particular routers have been a persistent research target, being ridiculously low on spare memory and CPU power. I remember, many years ago, doing some external work for the Early Bird project and the entire goal was how to do efficient, real time detection of worm signatures on data streams without impacting the performance of the router. 

Now, AI is key to real-time detection of threats in network traffic and storage (ransomware in the case of storage, which is another resource strapped area). 

LLMs have to be run according to needs. In some cases there will be zero issues with carrying out tasks in the Cloud or at the Edge. In other cases/scenarios you might want them running more locally. Maybe even in your Earbuds (for voice recognition or Bone Voice ID purposes etc). 

Or in your TV or even better across multiple devices at the same time. Resource pooling. 

As usual, a terrible take. All we’ve seen are gimmicky chat bots just come out, which despite the hoorah are entirely pointless to me as a consumer. MS has limited search queries in its web product beta or whatever. I wouldn’t expect that to be immediately rolled out into production iOS in the last 6 mos. Get real. 

danox said:

palomine said:

What is Apple doing with AI these days?

Not wasting money on a empty Buzzword.

entropys said:

dewme said:

The black option is ok, but aren’t 90% of all Windows laptops and notebooks already black? Have been for decades. How are normal folk supposed to know that you’re using a Mac?

Easy answer. They’ll see that you’re using a laptop computer without being plugged into a wall power socket. Problem solved. 

Personally I still prefer silver with black keyboard. Maybe it’s due to PTSD from too many years of lugging ugly Dell Latitudes around while scouting for available wall sockets in airports to plug in a power supply the size of a brick. 

You mean like my Lenovo P series workstation that costs as much as an MBP? It is cheap plastic shit that is only in my possession for software reasons. But it is grey and black.

Xed said:

danvm said:

danox said:

igorsky said:

But, please, tell me more about everyone else’s insurmountable lead. 

No one has a insurmountable lead but in today’s climate you want to be a vertical computer company, software and hardware under one roof…

Being a vertical company haven't made Pages / Number / Keynote better than MS Office or Google Workspace.  Neither made iCloud a better service than Google or MS services, neither made Siri a better assistant, even though Apple was ahead of the competition.  Apple has done an excellent work with hardware, but software is a different story.  They have their hits with macOS and iOS, but at the same time have iCloud, Pages / Numbers / Keynote and Siri, that are behind the competition.  We'll to wait and see what they do with AI.

1) Are "iWork" apps suppose to be as advanced/convoluted as MS Office? I don't think that's Apple's goal. While I have Office for Mac installed and have to use Office at work, at home I use Pages and Numbers because they do the job I need them to do as a consumer. I use Numbers daily and Pages frequently. If I needed the complex option of Excel I'd use that, and likely on a WinPC because I don't think the Mac version has all the Windows features—but I don't, and most people don't. Apple's apps are a much better experience. Google's offerings gets the job done like "iWork" apps but it's clunky even after all these years.

2) iCloud is a great service for syncing "iDevices" and Macs. There are many features that OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox don't begin to offer as comparable features. I use OneDrive/SharePoint daily at work and can't stand it but we're all MS services so I make it work. Google Drive is OK, but again not a great solution for Apple users. Dropbox is still my favorite for 3rd-party file sharing. If I have one complaint about iCloud it's that damn 5 GB free tier which is excessively paltry.

3) Apple hasn't done excellent work with software? You don't think their OSes are any good? You know that OSes are SW, right? Or their (practicely) seamless integration of services and features for Messages?

4) Object permanence involves understanding that items and people still exist even when you can't see or hear them. That also means that just because you aren't seeing Tim Cook go on the Today Show to talk about and demo their AI development doesn't mean they aren't nor haven't been working on it. Hardly anyone knew about ChatGPT until they launched a user-facing demo earlier this year, but that doesn't mean that ChatGPT didn't exist or that their efforts weren't worthwhile the day before you knew about it. And since Apple has a long history of not falling for "me too" and "me first" knee-jerk reactions by not even announcing a product or service, you should not assume that you're lack of knowledge on the interworking of a company means that they have nothing worthwhile.

1. "iWork" apps are very simple, and that could be good for a line of customers. But "simple" could mean "limited" for others.  At least you can use MS Office for simple task and for advanced tasks.  It also integrates to the MS 365 ecosystem, with is miles ahead of what Apple offers.  
2. I use OneDrive to sync my files with Windows and Macs, and at the moment works very nice, although. is not perfect.  iCloud could be a nice option for some customers.  But from what I have seen, people still prefer Google and MS storage services over what Apple offers.
3. Yes, I know operating systems are software.  That's the reason I said in my comment "They have their hits with macOS and iOS..."
4. I agree with you.  For that reason, I said in my comment "We'll have to wait and see what they do with AI."

danox said:

danvm said:

danox said:

igorsky said:

But, please, tell me more about everyone else’s insurmountable lead. 

No one has a insurmountable lead but in today’s climate you want to be a vertical computer company, software and hardware under one roof…

Being a vertical company haven't made Pages / Number / Keynote better than MS Office or Google Workspace.  Neither made iCloud a better service than Google or MS services, neither made Siri a better assistant, even though Apple was ahead of the competition.  Apple has done an excellent work with hardware, but software is a different story.  They have their hits with macOS and iOS, but at the same time have iCloud, Pages / Numbers / Keynote and Siri, that are behind the competition.  We'll to wait and see what they do with AI.

In the Microsoft menagerie of programs the only thing that’s any good is Microsoft Excel, I learned long time ago in college if I wanted a better looking functional document, just use Adobe InDesign, or Quark with their page layout/editor even Pages does a better job with word layout and graphics than Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and these days there are so many other great programs that deal with word manipulation, why would I use programs from Google a company that is mining data 24/7? Notability, Keynote, Pages, Canva, Goodnotes, Morpholio Trace, Notes, Procreate, CollaNote, OmniOutliner, anything from Adobe, Quark, and Affinity if you have to deal with graphics, layout, or web design.

What’s gonna be fun next year is watching the release of the Apple Vision Pro and seeing native small to medium sized companies, releasing programs which will show what it means being a vertical computer company (Apple) that is able to create new ecosystems is all about, and Googles, or Microsoft only response, in that new Apple ecosystem is to flood the market with their existing parasitic reduced feature (in comparison to what’s on their platform) from their existing ecosystems.

At the college level these days, it’s a new world if you use a Apple Mac computer or an iPad Pro the number of very good programs for taking notes, writing essays term, papers, or technical papers, and that vertical computer platform created by Apple allows many people to excel away from the plug and have long battery life in the process that’s what a vertical computer company does gives you the power to design beyond that barn burning must be plugged into a wall Microsoft computer. 

Being a vertical computer company, also helps to include things like LiDAR into every iPhone and iPad Pro made in the last four years, and that inclusion of LiDAR will become all the more apparent with the release of the Apple Vision Pro only a vertical computer company can do that.

P.S. Apple isn’t the company camping out in the ecosystems of Google and Microsoft they don’t need to, nor are they paying either of them $20 billion a year for a default position within their vertical computer ecosystem…. the benefits are all Apple I don’t think Apple is behind. They’re just on the different path that doesn’t involve burning down the barn, the ecosystem squatters in this game is Microsoft and Google.