AppleZulu

dutchlord said:

Not interested. We need less digital, less subscriptions and more human interaction.

You can still go outside and talk to people, you know.

nubus said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

It's not really a market changing feature, weird that anyone would expect a change in valuation because of it. 

The deal with Google seems to generate more profits than Mac and Watch combined.
If Apple decided to make a search engine the potential for profits from advertising could be huge.

Either way this should have an impact on the valuation of both Apple and Google/Alphabet.

That change is already well on its way. One of the stated features of Apple Intelligence will be for Siri to be able to interact with your iPhone's apps on your behalf. That portends how there is a not too distant future where internet search as we currently know it will fade from view.

Internet search started out as a human-made, categorized hierarchical website listing. (To find the Des Moines Register, you'd literally click through something like news>newspapers>countries>United States>Iowa>Des Moines>Des Moines Register.) Then a search box appeared at the top of the page and let you search the categorized listing below, rather than click through the listings. Then web crawlers replaced the humans in generating the categorized listing. Then the categorized listing went away, leaving the search box as the only UI, with results being a long list of website hyperlinks. Then the search box allowed the user to pose questions, rather than just a keyword search for websites. Now search results include an AI-generated summary above the long listing of website hyperlinks. Soon enough, the list of hyperlinks will be de-emphasized and disappear. This leaves search as a query that can be typed or spoken, with results that can be onscreen or spoken by your AI assistant. That leaves plenty of room for mischief, but not much for internet search advertising, or even website advertising, at least not as it functions presently.

As those things become more reliable, google searches will become as retro as a phone book. This will shake up the advertising business just as much as did the disappearance of the phone book's "yellow pages." 

elijahg said:

I wonder if it will be smart enough to access the various iCloud-linked data like calendars, reminders and iMessage without the owner's iPhone connected to the network. At the moment, HomePods complain that they can't access the iPhone. There is no reason HomePod and Apple Watch Siri can't forward requests to ChatGPT either, rather than "i found some results on the web" for anything but the most basic queries.

HomeKit needs more power as well - Home Assistant has the power but usability is poor. The automations in HomeKit are too basic; I have lights that are on low at night and when activity is detected they raise to be brighter. But there is no option to return to previous brightness/scene, they can either stay on at max, or turn off. You can sort of do it with shortcuts, but it's a faff.

That's a security measure rather than a 'not smart enough' thing. The HomePod's ability to use voice recognition to identify the user is pretty good, but requiring your iPhone to be connected to the same network makes it far less likely that someone without authorization could use your HomePod to access your personal data and communications while you're out of the house. 

My prediction is still that HomeOS and the mystery Home Hub will function like a 21st century home mainframe system.

The hub will likely just be a box, like an AppleTV box. It will contain the hardware necessary to run Apple Intelligence (AI) and an advanced Siri. Other Home devices, like existing HomePods, AppleTVs and new wireless home terminal screens, will then be networked to the hub, which will handle all the heavy processing that's required for all those devices to run AI and super Siri. (Note that the ridiculousness of the renderings in the article above makes it pretty obvious that the hub will not be a HomePod with a tablet nailed to the side.)

It's this mainframe scenario that will make it possible for Apple to roll out an AI-powered Apple Home without creating the enormous and prohibitive barrier of requiring everyone to replace their existing AppleTVs and HomePods before being able to use it. All those devices are already on your home network and they don't ever leave it. By introducing a powerful hub, all everything else needs to be able to do is function like a "dumb terminal." Not only does this scenario not require upgrading existing HomePods and AppleTVs with more powerful processors in each, but it also means that future models as well as new wireless Apple Home tablets can be kept less expensive. This is necessary because making an IoT home truly just work requires having enough user interfaces distributed through the home so that there's always something conveniently accessible. An iPhone or iPad helps with that, but it's easy to get up and leave it somewhere. Having enough control devices that "live" in different parts of the home is the better solution.

For Apple to leap forward with Apple Home and make it the thing it should be (and finally better than the competition), they have to make it possible to quickly put AI-powered control into lots of homes, while maintaining their stated intention to keep most AI queries securely under user control and out of the cloud. A "mainframe" Home Hub makes that instantly possible as soon as Apple puts it out there.

The addition of inexpensive terminal screens adds the option of visual Apple Home controls when talking to Siri isn't preferred. The new terminal screens themselves can be super-thin tablets as small as an iPad mini with a MagSafe connector on the back, so that it can easily be attached to a charger on the wall or a stand in the kitchen. It would only need a front-facing camera, a microphone and small built-in speakers. It would only need WiFi and bluetooth antennas, minimal data storage and a lightweight processor. Every query to one would be transmitted to the Hub for processing. This simple configuration would make them inexpensive enough to place several throughout the home. 

Put all that together, and you have an Apple Home that just works.

avon b7 said:

AppleZulu said:

Once again, consumer choice happens when selecting the device. If you want a managed, secure system, get an iPhone. If you want to be able to side load unregulated third-party stuff, get an Android phone. Forcing Apple to be more like Android results in less consumer choice, not more. 

Consumer choice can only truly happen when the consumer is aware of the choices. 

I've said many times before, I have never met anyone (and I've asked questions specifically) who is even remotely aware of the limitations imposed by Apple (all without informing the customer).

If those limitations were up front and the consumer signed off on them specifically, I would have zero problems with the limitations. 

I have repeatedly gone further and suggested such information might even be all that is needed for legislation to cease requiring Apple and others open up elements of their systems. 

What's to lose? What possible problem could Apple have with informing customers of its impositions if most people here are making the explicit claim that users 'choose' Apple precisely for what those limitations bring? 

People buy iPhones because they want the privacy, security and stability. These are features that Apple advertises, and they’re possible specifically because of their “walled garden” approach. You don’t need to survey people about the detailed implications of side-loading third-party apps. People also choose iPhone because they don’t have to think about how they work. They just work. Forcing Apple to make iPhones more like Android undermines those reasons people choose iPhones.