fastasleep

avon b7 said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

avon b7 said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

avon b7 said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

gatorguy said:

Does Apple normally release several research papers at such an early stage in developing features? 

This one hasn't really been tested yet, just 13 people have given it a try, but Apple is already announcing it?  I've always seen them as keeping their internal development quiet and under-the-radar and competitors guessing, before announcing to the world what they're up to with a consumer-ready feature all but complete.  Rather than these PR pieces intended to "delight the customer" it seems more likely this is meant to delight the market. 

Yes, on the AI front Apple has been publishing research papers since 2017 and sponsors AI conferences around the world. 

The important thing to remember is that the research isn’t publishing what features will be in an Apple product. The research may ultimately power a feature in a product but we don’t know what those features are or how they will be implemented. 

It’s funny that with the general public’s interest in AI rising over the last year or so that people jump to the conclusion that Apple is behind and is publishing research in an attempt to get in on the action. 

The reality is Apple has been including AI features in their products for almost a decade. They have built processors specifically to handle AI. They have published research on AI. And they have bought more AI companies than anyone else.  

Apple isn’t doing anything new, people are just starting to pay attention. 

Everyone with an interest has been doing the same. Even before 2017. Research is research. R&D centres, universities, private investment... 

Obviously that includes Apple. 

Yes, the arrival of NPUs on phones was important. Things got accelerated. They got accelerated for everyone with an interest.

When people say Apple is behind, it's because they haven't brought what others have brought to market. 

What does saying 'Apple has been using ML for years' mean?

That others haven't? 

Of course not. Was Apple doing more than others with ML? I very much doubt it. 

Apple was not even performing well with its initial ML efforts (especially in image recognition which was where most of the onus was at the start). 

Let me ask you directly:

Where was the DaVinci equivalent? 
Where was the Ascend equivalent? 
Where was the MindSpore equivalent? 
Where was the CANN equivalent? 
Where was the inference hardware? 
Where was the GOD network equivalent? 

That all dates back to 2018/19 and from just one company. 

Then add the progress of Nvidia, Google, Microsoft... 

Or Amazon and Meta. 

How did Nvidia get where it is today? By releasing solutions. 

So now 'AI' is the 'buzzword' (for better or worse) and it is on everybody's lips. 

That's tech for you. 

We can't ignore that. We can't ignore that solutions (both consumer and industry facing) have come to market and been developed at incredible speed. 

And when I say 'industry' I'm including health, science, education etc. 

What has Apple actually delivered when compared to what has been on the market for a while now? 

And when will an equivalent Apple release actually become reality?

Reveal at WWDC? Yes!
Deployment at the end of the year? Probably.
Beta for months? Possibly. 

That is not now. That is not today. That is why people are saying Apple is behind - now. 

Research? Great! But who isn't involved in research? 

Open source? The same answer. 

I'm open to everything changing quickly. That is technology for you, but right now, and looking at what's available, trying to argue Apple isn't behind is not corresponding to what is actually on the market. To reality. 

IMO, it is precisely why, after ignoring the term deliberately during WWDC, Apple now finds it necessary to talk about it, finally using the dreaded term, even before a usable consumer facing product is here.

That's not very Apple. The VP reveal wasn't either. But there you go. 

My goodness  you have mastered the straw man fallacy and sound a tad unhinged. Good. Luck with all of that. 

Strawman? 

Apple sponsoring conferences, working on ML since 2017, using AI in products etc has nothing to do with the claims of it being behind. That's because no one knows what is happening behind the scenes.

Not at Apple or anywhere else.

How could we know that? 

Couldn't that be the strawman here? 

What is unhinged is the notion that Apple working on something is justification that it is isn't behind.

How exactly is that supposed to work?

How are you supposed to compare things if you can't see them? 

Would you accept Siri as an example? 

Did they abandon work on Siri? No. We know that much. We know they continue to work on that. 

Those AI conferences around the world (around 40 since 2019?) were largely focused on language and image recognition. 

But how has Siri done as a result of all that investigation? For starters the only way for us to evaluate that is from a product that is actually released. So how is it doing today? All I see is most people saying it isn't up to the task. So much for research being the key! 

The research - for us - is worthless because everyone researches. Apple wasn't alone at those conferences was it? 

The research is only relevant when something comes of it. Only then can we - the consumers or industry watchers - evaluate it. 

So people can actually formulate an opinion on Siri and compare it to other offerings. 

That is why people say Apple is behind. They look at what's being offered as solutions and compare but they find there is nothing to compare to because Apple hasn't delivered anything yet in the areas that have been getting all the attention for the last couple of years. 

Saying it's 'working on it' doesn't count. Sponsoring conferences doesn't count. Research without a final product doesn't count. 

But then you slip in Apple already uses AI but people are only now realising it? 

And I'm making strawman arguments? 

Are people only now realising that other companies also use AI? Because, after all, they have been using it for years too. 

That is why I gave you the 'equivalents' list. 

How many years do you think Apple needs, because in all those years, competitors have been delivering solutions. 

I slipped in the GOD network because it is AI in the automobile realm and is 'self' learning. It's shipping and clocking up millions of km of real world data. 

The Apple equivalent here is a complete mystery. 

All I've said is that the people making those claims are right. That is because Apple isn't, let's say, where the puck is! 

I'm looking at what there is to see and not seeing the Apple equivalent. That is it. 

They might turn that on its head tonight, tomorrow, next year or in ten years. The point was, is and will remain the same until it changes. Apple hasn't been providing that much in where things are now and that is why Tim Cook cannot point to an Apple solution. It's why he basically said 'watch this space'. 

All I know is that this year's WWDC is likely to an AI lovefest, just like the 5G modem presentation was a few years back. 

Thanks for treating me to one of your delightful rants. 

Of course, this like your previous comment had nothing to do with what I said. The question that was asked was if Apple publishing research about AI was something Apple had been doing prior to the last few months. The answer to the question was “yes”  and I provided some detail as to how long Apple has been actively involved in publicly working on AI. 

Then you provided some objection that portrayed my comments as being specifically related to ML despite me not mentioning ML at all. And then went on some strange rant demanding I show how Apple has created aI offerings similar to existing ones. None of this was relevant to the comment. So yeah you have made up an argument, attributed it to me and then argued against it. That’s a straw man. Again, good luck with that. 

Maybe you didn't see your comments and my replies as part of a series of nested comments/replies hanging off an article containing more comment?

My comments can pick up on what you say but remain within the broader topic and nested comments (along with the comment of the article). 

I was working from memory when I said 'ML' instead of 'AI' so sorry for that. 

However, when you say 'AI features', that obviously includes ML but if you prefer, let's switch it back to 'AI'.

Technically that would be more accurate from a quoting perspective but would not change anything in the opinion I was giving. 

That opinion tackles your point and I expanded on why I think that is the case. That is not a 'rant'. That also includes the other points in the article, like Apple being behind. 

Your answer was not solely about previous research efforts by Apple. It was about shipping technologies. You added:

"The reality is Apple has been including AI features in their products for almost a decade. They have built processors specifically to handle AI. They have published research on AI. And they have bought more AI companies than anyone else.  

Apple isn’t doing anything new, people are just starting to pay attention."

Largely correct  and no different to others (but how do you know they've bought more AI companies than anyone else?) but my point, and this is key, is that that is irrelevant and here (as per the article thread you are posting in) and I explained why.

IMO, it's also incorrect that people are just starting to pay attention to what Apple already has. 

You say people are 'jumping to conclusions that Apple is behind and is publishing research in an attempt to get in on the action' 

I say the reality is that Apple is behind at the moment and I haven't noted people claiming that research papers are an attempt to get in on the action. 

And that wasn't my interpretation of what Gatorguy said either, BTW. 

Whenever the recent claims that 'Apple is behind in AI' are banded about, all I've seen is people referring to Apple not having the latest buzzword AI features when compared to its competitors.

Are those claims correct? Because when people say Apple is behind, that is what they mean. 

What Apple is shipping is irrelevant. The 'behind' claims are concerned with what Apple is not shipping and hasn't shipped in all these years while competitors have. 

I'm not saying that's a 'good' or 'bad' thing in itself. I'm stating a factual situation and when you look at the bigger AI picture there is a lot Apple still isn't doing.

liilliil said:

Better (and cheaper) buy proper wacom

retrogusto said:

coolfactor said:

Navigating the TV app these days requires a college degree. I can't image how non-savvy folks manage it.

I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a way in the TV app, as there is in every other streaming app I know, to keep track of which episodes I’ve already watched. It only gives me a button to watch the first episode, and otherwise I have to go through the vague episode descriptions and try to figure out which ones I’ve already seen. It’s hard to believe Apple doesn’t have a solution for this, but I don’t see it, nor do I see any “keep watching” category. Am I missing something?

coolfactor said:

I miss the old days of the simplicity of iTunes. You knew exactly where you were, what you were looking at, and what you were buying.

Navigating the TV app these days requires a college degree. I can't image how non-savvy folks manage it.

The number of times I've wanted to watch something only to find out that it's available through a different "content network" and only being advertised inside the TV app.