mpantone

M68000 said:

mpantone said:

At last it looks like I'll finally be upgrading from iOS 17 to iOS 18 in the next few days. Same with migrating from iPadOS 17 to iPadOS 18 as well as macOS Sonoma to macOS Sequoia.

As usual I will wait until at least June 2026 to install iOS 26/iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe.

Totally up to you. But I have no idea what you are waiting for. 

I'm waiting for Apple to clean up their Cupertino dogchow.

Apple's software QA has markedly and steadily declined over the years. Ten years ago, yes, I would install the newest release the same week it came out (September usually). But as their release quality noticeably worsened, I started delaying this to a point release. Over years, this just drifted to later point releases until a few years ago I just waited until the week of WWDC in June to date. For sure Apple would not be adding any features, it would all be bug fixes by the time they previewed the next gen OSes.

But now most of Apple's operating systems still have significant bugs in the x.5 releases. Hence, waiting until this year's x.6 releases. This ensures a smoother user experience since I simply don't see nine months worth of bugs (typically the most serious ones). I just don't have the interest/energy to deal with that garbage anymore. I will wait for the features when the software is fully baked: July or August.

Note that I have skipped some releases altogether like macOS Crapalina (I upgraded directly from Mojave to Big Sur sometime in the spring of 2021, six months after that latter's release).

Note that Apple themselves are aware that their software quality is going downhill. They even took a week pause in December 2023 to tackle bugs which delayed a point release. And yes, Siri with Apple Intelligence is another example of how Apple determined that a particular feature wasn't ready for primetime. They have also removed and reintroduced some features like AI-powered summary notifications.

Note that since Apple releases security patches for the previous two operating systems, my devices are still safe and well supported.

Note that I do the same thing with Windows. I'm running Windows 11 23H2 on several machines with one system upgraded to 24H2 in the past month. Redmond dogchow certainly isn't better than Cupertino dogchow.

At last it looks like I'll finally be upgrading from iOS 17 to iOS 18 in the next few days. Same with migrating from iPadOS 17 to iPadOS 18 as well as macOS Sonoma to macOS Sequoia.

As usual I will wait until at least June 2026 to install iOS 26/iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 Tahoe.

Is that with marginally normal Grok 3? Or with off-the-rails "delusions of grandeur" MechaHitler Grok 4?

The problem isn't with the ability of these AI chatbot assistants to have a conversational tone. The problems are things like accuracy, bias, lack of reasoning, lack of emotion/compassion, inability to recognize satire/sarcasm, lack of common sense (which is a growing problem with a lot of humans).

I occasionally try out all of these consumer AI assistants and they are all dreadfully inaccurate. About 5.5 months ago I asked "what time is the Super Bowl kickoff?" Not a single one got it right. About a week before the NCAA men's basketball tournament, I asked 4-5 chatbots to fill out a bracket. Not a single one provided a bracket that had the actual teams playing in the tournament.

Grok's performance was unbelievably bad at the March Madness bracket. Not only did it create fake competitors playing a fake bracket, it predicted that all of the higher seeds would win their games. ZERO upsets. That *NEVER* happens in a real sports competition.

Sure, it might sound like you're having a human-like conversation but Grok is about the worst of the AI chatbots. Embarrassingly bad. And let's not forget its MechaHitler hallucinations. That just happened a couple of weeks ago.

This is a good example of how a consumer thinks Grok sounds real so it must be accurate and trustworthy. LOL, terrible assumption. And now with Grok's new found language skills, would you vote it into office? Accept its recommendation to eat rocks and put glue on pizza? Give up your ICBM launch codes?

Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!

  

For anyone who thinks that AI is a passing fad, you are completely out of touch with reality.

AI is here to stay. It's doing some amazing things in the enterprise markets and if it can eke out 100 basis points in net profit for some Fortune 500 company, guess what? They're gonna use it.

I bet 99.9% of people on these tech news site discussion forums who say they don't use AI are over 30 years old. That's right. There's a generational gap in AI usage.

Just yesterday, the AP reported on this:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f

That's right pre-teens are using this stuff and some older teenagers even see the danger in young children using AI.

And the consumer AI industry is largely a lawless frontier right now, it needs heavy government regulation from world governments, not just your state's governor or 1600 Pennsylvania.

And many of today's consumer AI companies are really no better than tobacco companies. They are creating AI chatbots that look and behave like anime characters (Grok's assistants, SpicyChat AI, Character.AI, et cetera) to attract youngsters into interacting with them. It's the digital equivalent of adding candy flavors to vaping products.

Look at the way Grok started rolling out their AI anime-skinned assistants like Ani. They debuted on iPhones first, still not available on many Android devices. Why? Probably because iPhone is the platform of choice for young people (the under 25 market), especially teens. If you are over 35, guess what? You are not the target audience of consumer AI companies. I'm way beyond that but at least I know that I am not who AI companies crave as a user.

If you care about the future of today's youngsters -- the ones who will be tasked with fixing many of the world's problems -- you need to pay attention to what AI is today, where it is going, who is using it, for what reasons, etc.

There's one oldtimer here who continually gripes about AI, fearing it will displace him from his job as a writer. AI's potential effects are far, Far, FAR greater than that.

Just sticking your head in the sand or plugging your ears and saying "I'm not using AI so nyah!" like a little brat throwing a tantrum isn't going to stop AI from proliferating. That much is clear in the 3+ years I've been closely following AI.

tht said:

mpantone said:

First of all Apple is not bringing back the iPhone mini. Let it go. I'm one of a very, Very, VERY small group of people who prefer smaller phones. Apple has sold smaller phones for years, they know exactly how many they sold and how the demand curve was trending before they canned the iPhone 13 mini.

As for the other iPhone models, I predict that any iPhone with only one rear camera will end up selling poorly. Poor sales of iPhone 16e in India shows that even price-conscious markets will lean toward an older iPhone with multiple rear cameras versus the current entry level 16e model.

That's because Joe Consumer all over the world prioritizes these features: camera, display, battery.

Well, never say never. 

There is a niche of buyers who will buy a small phone, just as there is a niche of buyers who will buy a $2000 folding display phone. I've said it before that iPhone mini had enough sales imo. It was on order 3 to 5 million unit sales. That is enough. The issue I think Apple is having was gross margins weren't as high as Apple wanted. This can be addressed easily enough if they want to bring this type of model back, as well as addressing battery.

Look, if pumping up gross margins was that easy, Apple would have done it and came out with the iPhone 14 mini, iPhone 15 mini, etc.

My guess is that the sales curve was headed down. They probably sold fewer 13 minis than 12 minis and projected even fewer sales going forward. My guess is that Apple had a iPhone 14 mini in their labs but pulled the plug on the product line. Today it is unlikely there are any mini iPhone prototypes in Apple's labs.

The closest thing Apple has now is the SE models which is often older/cheap tech in an older iPhone chassis. Low sales volumes means higher component cost per unit because of weaker volume discounts. If the market isn't there, Apple can't demand better pricing from their component vendors.

In any case, if you are holding out for an iPhone mini my guess is you have purchased your last iPhone.

Note that Apple's competitors don't really offer smaller handsets (outside of niche markets in Asia) apart from the folding models.