[HN Gopher] The Rabbit R1 is probably running Android and is pow...
___________________________________________________________________
The Rabbit R1 is probably running Android and is powered by an
Android app
Author : gmjosack
Score : 187 points
Date : 2024-04-30 22:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.androidauthority.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.androidauthority.com)
| rvz wrote:
| You should not be surprised. If you look at most of the jobs in
| the careers page for example [0], they mention the need for
| "Experience with framework-level customization of AOSP" and that
| the app is in "Flutter".
|
| So this was immediately obvious that it was running Android. It
| is just that this was a nice and perfectly packaged scam, but not
| as expensive scam like the Humane AI Pin.
|
| and yes. Humane is also using Android for their AI Pin devices.
| Unsurprisingly. [1]
|
| [0] https://boards.greenhouse.io/rabbit/jobs/4229430007
|
| [1] https://humane.com/jobs/5045093004
| jsheard wrote:
| The kind of SoC that you would put into something like this
| often _only_ has official support for Android, too. If you 're
| making any kind of mobile thing then Android is almost
| certainly the path of least resistance nowadays.
|
| The Playstation Portal is another good example, it's a single-
| purpose device just for streaming games from a PS5 but it runs
| full blown Android, locked down so you can't use it for
| anything else.
| cubefox wrote:
| Using Android doesn't make it a scam.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| The scam is they are selling it as anything other than "phone
| with fewer features"
| oivey wrote:
| That's not a scam, either. They're not being dishonest
| about what the hardware really is. They're probably at
| least being unrealistically optimistic about the future
| software, though.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This review was interesting:
|
| https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=-SZ1xUpj5-KE7xWD
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes they are. It's not an AI assistant. It's a smartphone
| with fewer features and slightly different form factor.
| kube-system wrote:
| Are Android tablets a scam too?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| No, because the title is honest. An Android tablet means
| exactly that. An "AI Assistant" does not. That implies
| it's something much more than it is.
| __m wrote:
| Why is it not an ai assistant?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This reviewer seems to think it wasn't all that
| "assistanty"
|
| https://youtu.be/ddTV12hErTc?si=WGJLu6TwzYVgQ5wE
| kube-system wrote:
| So? A scam is a scheme to profit by using dishonesty.
| Making something poorly, or cheaply, or not to anyone's
| liking has absolutely no bearing whatsoever as to whether
| something is a scam.
|
| Things can be (and many things are) gimmicky, early
| development, cheaply made, or made to someone else's
| preferences in a completely honest way. This is that.
| TillE wrote:
| The AI Pin is at least a wearable that puts a camera and a
| projector on your chest. That's not much, but it's something
| vaguely novel.
|
| The Rabbit thing is literally just a terrible phone.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Absolutely nothing wrong with using Android as a base for this.
| rjrogerto wrote:
| As others have commented - this is unsurprising - and makes a lot
| of sense from a technical perspective. Don't see this as scammy
| at all. And as for the product - the main qualm seems to be the
| lack of utility vs cost - which again does not seem scammy to me.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| The scam is that the hardware is unnecessary, expensive, and
| strictly worse than just using your phone.
| danparsonson wrote:
| That doesn't make it a scam though, just a waste of money. A
| scam would be something like, you order it and what turns up
| is a photo of the device with a QR code on the back linking
| to a download for the app.
| serf wrote:
| the line isn't that clear cut. broken promises that create
| a sale could certainly be construed as 'scammy'.
| danparsonson wrote:
| I don't know too much about this product - did they
| promise not to run it on Android?
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| The scam is that it uses Playwright and no LLM actually
| exists.
| asadm wrote:
| Market isn't an optimization problem. Market can decide what
| is necessary or isn't. I would pick this up for $200 if the
| models were running locally.
| msephton wrote:
| I think we all would. But realistically no $200 device is
| going to run models locally.
| dartos wrote:
| You can run models on anything if you try
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| They don't though. And if they did, it would cost more than
| $200. Like, say, a phone.
| bgun wrote:
| The article says nothing about the R1 being "scammy" - only
| that its functionality is overlapped by devices you likely
| already own. Also unsurprising for a $200 device, which is only
| even marketed to be a novel interface. Honestly if it's less
| addictive than a smartphone due to being more limited, that
| could be reason enough to carry one.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It's not that it being based on android is the surprising part,
| it's that they designed and sold a physical device which could
| be replaced with an app on the hardware you already have.
|
| The whole device seems to be "it's Siri but as a standalone
| device" and since you still have to take your phone with you,
| it seems to provide no value.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| >it's that they designed and sold a physical device which
| could be replaced with an app on the hardware you already
| have.
|
| Smartwatches are exactly that, and some people buy those.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Smart watches do quite a lot that my phone can't. Primarily
| health/fitness tracking, and being on my wrist.
|
| This device is essentially a phone in every way but
| massively less functional. I can't see a single thing it
| does better or more conveniently.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Nobody was going to pay $200 for that app w/ 85 gazillion LLM
| wrappers already out there, so they need some other form
| factor to get traction.
| sniggers wrote:
| It can do a lot more than ChatGPT's app, let alone Siri which
| can do even less.
| elif wrote:
| This is a cursory take based upon superficial reckoning. The apps
| already exist, and they already suck, precisely because of the
| capabilities that phones have.
|
| AI apps, particularly voice assistants, are designed to give you
| text and data via a screen. I can't tell you how many times I've
| asked a perfectly simple question and my android assistant
| responded, infuriatingly, "here's what I found on the web" or the
| dreaded "please unlock your phone" prompt when it relates to
| anything remotely personal.
|
| If I wanted a web browser experience or to find the answer on my
| own, or to follow up with focusing my attention and interacting
| with a digital keyboard, I would have!
|
| The rabbit interaction is for a purely responsive 2024 AI
| experience, which doesn't try to shovel me back to the 90's at
| earliest convenience.
| shwoopdiwoop wrote:
| I ordered one since it cost exactly as much as a 1 year stand-
| alone perplexity license that it comes with.
|
| I don't know how they can possibly make money with this but i'm
| looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I really like
| the teenage engineering vibes of it.
| echelon wrote:
| > i'm looking forward to having a new toy on my desk and I
| really like the teenage engineering vibes of it.
|
| I want more companies to try hardware!
|
| To quote the title,
|
| > a thing that should just be an app, is just an Android app
|
| Except the company doesn't own the hardware for distribution by
| being an Android app! People want developers to be subservient
| and taxed forever, as if Google and Apple own all of non-
| desktop computing. It's an unfortunate place we've arrived at.
|
| We need many more hardware options. The cellphone duopoly is
| harming and taxing innovation.
| elif wrote:
| Yeah Google not allowing 3rd party apps to be used as the
| voice assistant is 100% reason enough to release as hardware.
| I don't want to unlock my phone and type and click buttons
| just to ask about a task I'm working on.
| dagmx wrote:
| How does Bixby work then?
|
| My point being, they're already releasing an Android device
| with cellular. Why not make it a bespoke Android phone
| and/or partner with someone like One Plus to be a
| differentiator?
|
| The number of people who'd carry two devices around is
| vanishingly small when the use cases all can happen on
| their phone anyway.
| axelthegerman wrote:
| Agreed, would love more hardware options. But not sure how a
| gadget based on AOSP helps with the smartphone duopoly.
|
| From the first looks of it those will just end up in the
| drawers or landfill in no time which is a little sad.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Same and same. I don't know if I'd have bought a year of
| Perplexity, but the R1 _plus_ that year for $200 was worth it
| to me for the experimental nature of it.
| __m wrote:
| Not just the vibes, they worked together with teenage
| engineering on it
| svantana wrote:
| The math works out because they're most likely paying per API
| call and are banking on the near-certainty that >90% of devices
| will end up in a drawer within a week, never to be used again.
| paxys wrote:
| They aren't paying retail price for the subscription. The basic
| idea behind the business model is - you pay wholesale rates to
| the provider, charge all users a set fee, and hope that they
| collectively don't use the service too much.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| Same here. $200 for an artifact of the times / more or less a
| little piece of decoration. Occasional question answering,
| maybe.
|
| Definitely not hooking it up to Spotify or any personal
| accounts after hearing how they handle security.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Rabbit R1: Barely Reviewable [video]_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40206063
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| _I Witnessed the Future of AI, and It 's a Broken Toy_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40205666
| zameermfm wrote:
| "AI in a Box" devices doesn't even come closer to the Apps we
| have today and we already carry our phones everywhere.
| iOS/Android and Apps go through heavy optimization, atleast by
| the OS to make sure battery life is managed well. I really cannot
| fathom the utility, position of these devices and why would
| people buy them except for early adopters. Accessibility, though
| is a big use case, I believe these newer devices which tries to
| live on their own will do extremely well for people with
| impaired/lost vision and Humane AI pin can double down real-time
| translations as well, because as having a conversation with a
| foreigner in their language with the phone is tad bit unorthodox.
|
| So I guess all depends on how next evolution of these devices are
| going to be, and cannot see it's replacing the mobile anytime
| soon. "More devices" is never the answer.
| drewda wrote:
| FWIW, there already are lots of purpose built devices for
| accessibility for blind and visually impaired individuals:
| https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technolog...
| amanzi wrote:
| I actually like the idea of a small, stand-alone gadget like
| this. The battery life should definitely be better - if a decent
| phone can last a day or two, I'd expect a device like this to be
| able to last much longer than that.
|
| But I can't see how they can sell this device without a monthly
| subscription? Even if you don't make many AI queries, you're
| still consuming resources on their "rabbithole" web services. If
| the company behind Rabbit closes down, I'm guessing the devices
| will become near-useless? Although, knowing that it runs on
| Android gives hope for hackers to extend and modify the devices.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Re the battery: a new software update came out today that they
| claim will improve battery life 5x. I don't know if that'll pan
| out or not; that's what their notes said.
| zachthewf wrote:
| GPT3.5-level models are now insanely cheap: $1 buys you
| something like a Moby Dick's worth of text. STT and TTS models
| are getting cheaper too. I'm guessing that they are betting
| usage over the lifetime of the device (maybe 2 years tops?)
| amortizes out to a decent margin without a subscription.
|
| It's also a lot easier to stomach a beautiful shiny teenage
| engineering toy that doesn't do much if you don't have to pay
| every month.
| a-dub wrote:
| the same is true of oculus quest devices. the choice of under the
| hood operating system really only matters to developers,
| otherwise why wouldn't you build on aosp?
|
| the real value is in how it functions in the life of the users.
| if they put a new llm based shell on top and built a new app
| ecosystem for it that makes users happy, then they've done
| something useful!
| Gigachad wrote:
| The hardware of the quest provides significant functionality.
| What did the hardware on the R1 provide that isn't on a phone
| already?
| sniggers wrote:
| It's cool. Would not have been as cool as an app
| kstrauser wrote:
| That makes me feel better about the whole project. If they were
| wasting their time developing a new OS from scratch instead of
| working on the programs running on it, I'd think they're nuts.
|
| I bought an R1 during the first pre-order and it arrived a couple
| days ago. In it's current form, it's _not_ the AI from the movie
| "Her" that's going to manage your life for you. It's neat. It's a
| cool little toy that does interesting things and has potential.
| It definitely needs work: before today's software update, I
| couldn't type all the ASCII characters in my home's Wi-Fi
| password. I still like playing with it and I hope it improves.
| samspenc wrote:
| Yeah, I would actually expect most hardware like this to be
| running on some open-source OS, either Android (AOSP), Linux or
| some variant.
|
| I mean, even the hardware that Meta and Amazon produce are
| built on top of Android / Linux variants, so I would be
| surprised if smaller players were writing their own custom OS
| these days.
| wmf wrote:
| It sounds like they're using a phone SoC and generally those
| chips only come with Android drivers anyway.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Anything else would also be completely insane. Usually your
| two options are Android or yocto depending on how custom you
| want your system to be and whether you want to rather write
| an android app.
|
| There is nothing worthy of criticism in the fact they choose
| android as a base.
| imtringued wrote:
| A competitor (e.g. Google) could come up with an app based
| version at any time. That app based version could simply
| integrate with the apps you have already installed. So far
| this thing is just a quirky feature phone.
| tasuki wrote:
| And the main question remains unanswered: why do they sell a
| whole device rather than an app?
| jayd16 wrote:
| The eye catching hardware is what made this project
| interesting. Would we be talking about this at all if it was
| just an app?
| mixedCase wrote:
| So it's not really something intended to be efficient and
| useful, it's a conversation piece.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Have you looked at other teenage engineering products?
| None of them are in any way the most practical way to
| accomplish something.
| Gigachad wrote:
| The OP-1 is genuinely useful. It might not be good value,
| but I'm not sure anything does the job it does nicer.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Sure, I have no doubt that someone can make good use out
| of it. But clearly it isn't meant to be the most
| practical option, in the sense that the same things can
| be accomplished without a 2k$ device.
| kstrauser wrote:
| And then there's the K.O. II, which is somehow
| inexpensive, nice, and useful.
| gipp wrote:
| That's _their_ reason to make it a stand-alone device. What
| is _my_ reason to _want_ it to be a stand-alone device?
| refulgentis wrote:
| Too many layers of stubborn ppl acting confused at this
| point. The hardware is the hardware because they wanted
| to make hardware. People bought they hardware because
| they wanted hardware.
| gipp wrote:
| ? I'm not confused about anything, I'm explaining why
| it's a terrible decision. People _aren 't_ buying it (at
| least not now that it's actually out and reviewed, pre
| orders aside), not just because it's stand-alone hardware
| but that certainly isn't helping matters.
| refulgentis wrote:
| You're right, and I agree vehemently about the poor
| quality as well as if you're planning on taking a big
| swing, better to start with an app.
|
| Bizarrely, my 5 year plan was _exactly_ what they did,
| but step 1 is release a cross-platform app and get it
| reliable as possible while waiting for an AI level up.
|
| Releasing an app, especially when they're trying to get
| ahead of the game and are staffed and funded to do so,
| would beg the question "Why do just an app? It's the same
| as ChatGPT, which is free."
|
| The reviews are bad, they're certainly not on the
| precipice of selling a million units. but they had a ton
| of preorders and the strategy worked, they're in the
| conversation, names out there, and they'll be forever
| associated with AI hardware. A GPT wrapper app with the
| same level of coverage would get the same general
| reaction we're seeing now. A GPT wrapper app with the
| coverage a wrapper app gets would get much less
| attention.
| randomdata wrote:
| There is unlikely any reason for you, someone who spends
| his time posting anonymously on an Internet forum, to
| want this.
|
| But there is population out there who like to go outside
| and show off their fancy things to other real, live
| people. They are the intended audience.
|
| Yes, it very well may be that this is not fancy enough to
| win anyone over, but such is the nature of business. Not
| everything is a hit. Even successful companies like Apple
| and Google that you would think should know with
| certainty what people want have had their fair share of
| flops. You really don't know until you try.
| aquova wrote:
| While I'm not interested in this device either, you could
| make this argument for many standalone devices. Why does
| Nintendo keep selling their own devices rather than
| putting their games on phones and PCs? They think having
| it as a physical, distinct device offers something that a
| phone app doesn't, which is pretty on brand for them.
|
| Now, whether or not the buyers will agree with their
| thinking is another story.
| bagels wrote:
| Possibly not, but is this thing a sales success? I haven't
| seen any compelling positive discussions of it yet.
| kstrauser wrote:
| What whole app could completely take over for Siri or
| whatever Google's version is, with a single button press
| launching the app and putting you directly into command mode,
| at any time, without unlocking anything first?
|
| I don't blame Rabbit for wanting to control the hardware they
| run on.
| giaour wrote:
| Android lets you choose which digital assistant app to use.
| Settings > Apps > Default apps > Digital assistant app.
| Stock Android will have this preconfigured to Google
| Assistant, but it's designed to be swappable.
| nikcub wrote:
| The EU are almost certainly going to push this onto Apple
| too once they realise the big tech co's are going to use
| their browser and phone distribution to push their new
| LLM based assistant products to market
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Not this case, but there are cases where convenience of a
| custom device is nicer compared to a smartphone(custom
| buttons/instant access, physical feedback of custom
| controls). For example with cameras, if you want to control
| shutter speed/iso etc, a camera with custom mapped buttons
| and wheels will be more convenient compared to a smartphone
| h0l0cube wrote:
| The question was somewhat answered in TFA
|
| > We didn't bother testing out any other functionality, such
| as Spotify integration, Vision, etc., but we wouldn't be
| surprised if some of them didn't work. After all, the Rabbit
| R1's launcher app is intended to be preinstalled in the
| firmware and be granted several privileged, system-level
| permissions -- only some of which we were able to grant -- so
| some of the functions would likely fail if we tried.
| adonese wrote:
| Jesse Lyu (rabbit ceo) mentioned that they wouldn't wait for
| os to avail and release sdks as it will take many years
| (paraphrasing).
|
| The idea sounds I mean there's Alexa (which is way cheaper)
| and shipping an AOSP with a Chinese vendor hardware is indeed
| manageable -- but do we really want to have a ChatGPT-only
| 24/7? I highly doubt that, at least for me. I'm probably only
| chronically online for the social aspects of that, but had my
| interactions been only to an llm agent, I don't think I'll be
| using it that much.
|
| I like to think 5 or 10 years later in the future and see how
| us and the newer generations would interact with technology
| but I find it difficult to envision that would be rabbit r1
| device
| nbzso wrote:
| Too much VC money into a gazillion startups without proper
| management. What can go wrong? This is the result of tech cultism
| and lack of proper production standards. Design Thinking is like
| some form of forbidden knowledge today.
|
| So much "disruption" with no clear product use case. AI is the
| new dotcom boom. 190 percent hype. 10 percent actual
| implementation.
|
| The startups have expectation to capitalize on testing with early
| adopters and naive consumers. The big companies fake their demos
| for likes and stock prices.
|
| What a conundrum. We need people with real skills and clear
| vision. We need Skunk Works team quality to achieve something of
| substance.
| yinser wrote:
| Building a physical product, launching, getting feedback.
| They're in the arena and regardless of how bad the initial
| offering is it's more than sitting on the sidelines demanding
| Skunk Works from others.
| threeseed wrote:
| So in your world the idea is to launch alpha quality products
| as early as possible.
|
| Ovens that leak gas, cars where the wheel comes off, games
| where you only get 10 minutes in etc.
|
| Personally, I prefer how the world _actually_ works where you
| have user testing sessions, beta programs, quality management
| etc.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Nobody's going to die if their Rabbit can't connect to
| Spotify on the first try. It's a nice early release that
| was very clear about being an early release.
| yinser wrote:
| Consumer software is the farthest thing from the regulation
| of the products you just mentioned. Is there a gun to your
| head to buy a Rabbit?
| nbzso wrote:
| Jerk knee reactions. Typical for HN from 2015 onwards.
|
| There was a time when here knowledge and experience did not
| hinder the new ideas at all. My entire career was a result of
| this process in early 2008.
|
| Today we live in inflated VC realm of promises, big
| statements and low delivery. It is not about demanding on a
| side lines.
|
| Some of us still produce quality by following the proven
| methodology from the past. To push to market R&D projects and
| demand applause is pathetic. And no. There is no place for PC
| in this. It is about time to wake up from the AI Utopia. And
| the cleansing process is going on as we speak. Corporations
| reached the limitation of participation trophies and DEI
| agenda.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I don't think it's improper management, I think management
| knows exactly what product they were putting out.
|
| The problem is marketing and severely exaggerating what these
| devices are and can do thanks to all of the noise about "AI"
| recently.
|
| This is a clear miscommunication (or intentional
| miscommunication) internally about what this thing actually is.
| TrevorFSmith wrote:
| Maybe they don't want to pay Apple and Google a third of their
| revenue for the privilege of shipping software in the app stores.
| threeseed wrote:
| No instead they will need to pay far more for Marketing and PR.
|
| And end up producing their own custom interface which has been
| universally panned.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| > Unfortunately for them, both products launched half-baked
|
| A.I. itself is amazing... but still kind of half baked
| leeeeeepw wrote:
| https://Netwrck.com among many chat apps like character AI etc
| twobitshifter wrote:
| If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint? I am surprised
| by the poor battery life if it's running Android and using push
| to talk. They need to do something about that rabbit animation
| because that's where this thing spends most of its time.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >If it ran Debian would we have the same complaint?
|
| No, in that case they would deserve to be called incompetent.
| garrisonj wrote:
| Are people surprised that the app is written in code that can run
| on a different computer? Of course it can.
|
| It would be much weirder to learn they built an entire tech stack
| specifically for the device and that it was technically
| impossible to port it.
| over_bridge wrote:
| I'm interested in a device like this for my sight impaired older
| relatives. They struggle with smartphones and would benefit from
| a single purpose device with big obvious UI elements. Not sure
| they are the target demographic for the R1 but I can see v3 (R3?)
| being pretty useful. Maybe sell a case that looks like a tea cosy
| and ditch the orange first though
| nxicvyvy wrote:
| > not an android app
|
| > bespoke AOSP
|
| Lol.
| paxys wrote:
| This entire device category is dead the second Apple & Google
| release their own AI assistants baked into the mobile OS.
| cogman10 wrote:
| They already have. Apple calls theirs "siri".
|
| The dumb part here is a company getting attention for making a
| virtual assistant just because they added "AI".
| thih9 wrote:
| Siri is no longer seen as an AI assistant, at least not with
| the post-chatgpt meaning of the word 'AI'.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I agree, it is a looks problem. Capability wise, Siri and
| Google assistant do most of what rabbit did. They are well
| positioned to be able to expand every bit as quickly as
| rabbit can.
| brevitea wrote:
| One notable difference is that Apple and Google don't
| have your interaction data at the end of the day. Well,
| unless Rabbit sells it to them.
| marcinzm wrote:
| You do realize Google and Apple control 100% of the phone
| market, right? They don't need Rabbit's interaction data.
| They have their own. Their beta users probably provide
| more data than Rabbit's whole user base will.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Huawei alone has >5%, and definitely at least a fifth of
| that install base is on harmonyos 4 which runs on a
| unique microkernel.
|
| So there's no way this is true. Google and Apple probably
| don't even control 95% circa Q1 2024.
| threeseed wrote:
| We are 6 weeks away from WWDC where Apple will be launching
| their new Siri.
|
| And we already know they are building a LAM for it.
|
| It's likely one of the reasons Rabbit was rushed out the
| door.
| whoitwas wrote:
| Maybe Siri isn't. I'm not even sure I've ever seen anyone
| use it successfully. I'm pretty sure Google's assistant was
| built using ML.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| you can already replace assistant with Gemini
| nosrepa wrote:
| And I won't until it lets me turn off my lights with my phone
| locked.
| Lutzb wrote:
| * outside of the EU.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I'm surprised people are surprised this Rabbit thing is running
| Android
|
| 99.9% of the HW projects that have a modestly complex
| display/networking need run on Android. It's a no-brainer. OEM
| the HW from China, even if moderately custom and they can get you
| something for cheap.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I don't think people (well outside of some clickbait headlines)
| are surprised it is running Android. But more that it is an
| app.
|
| Personally I figured it was running Android but likely a
| heavily modified fork.
|
| Especially after how many times they seem to have buckled down
| on it not being possible as just an app.
|
| (Unless I am misunderstanding and it is indeed a fork and not
| just an App? ).
| rvnx wrote:
| There is no need to get anything more complex than needed;
| the Rabbit R1 is just an Android phone, pre-installed with
| only one app, with an action button bound, and that's it.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I agree to a point, there is no reason to over complicate
| it.
|
| But if you are going to make claims about how its
| impossible to be an app, maybe you should be making sure
| that it isnt just an app and you are going down the route
| of it being its own distro.
|
| I am not saying it should have been its own android distro,
| but it was my expectation given how they were talking about
| it.
|
| I mean did they really not expect people to dig into it
| once it was in the wild and find their exaggeration (lies)?
| paxys wrote:
| The surprising part isn't that the device is running Android
| OS, but that the whole thing is a single Android _app_.
| smith7018 wrote:
| Well, it's technically a system-level launcher which means it
| has more permissions and access than a standard app.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Haven't used (or even seen IRL) Rabbit R1, but is there
| anything that requires it to be something more than an app?
| Isn't it just a thin layer with access to microphone and
| camera that translates everything to the backend?
| Leszek wrote:
| No one is surprised. People are saying that this _could_ be an
| Android app, and _should_ be an Android app -- and now it's
| been shown that it _already is_ an Android app.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Android seems to be the go-to choice for most devices requiring
| a touch screen. You could get away with a lot less in most
| cases, but why bother when you can just throw together a quick
| Android app and use some industrial Android ROM to take care of
| all the hard parts? Everything from portable supermarket self
| service scanners to TVs has been running Android for ages. Sony
| has been putting Android on TVs since before Android TV was
| even a thing.
|
| The only thing Android sucks at is native support for keyboard
| interaction, anything big screen or touch screen related may as
| well be presumed Android until proven otherwise.
|
| There's one exception, which is Samsung, who is still pushing
| Tizen to its products, though their smart watches switched from
| Tizen to Android not too long ago.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It makes sense, but also the Rabbit barely _uses_ the
| touchscreen. Almost all the interaction is via the scrolly
| wheel.
| everforward wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. It feels like they either use Android or
| they end up re-implementing half of Android, probably at early
| Android quality.
|
| Bonus points because then they get to re-implement Spotify
| integrations et al instead of using an existing APK.
|
| I don't really care that it runs Android, but it seems like it
| runs on Android _and_ locks you out of said OS which I don't
| love. By all means, build on Android, but then let people use
| Android. Let me slap a SIM in it and make calls, or install a
| stupid clock face or something.
|
| I'd say the same thing of most appliances. I don't care what OS
| it's built on, but I want access to that OS as much as
| possible. Eg I liked that Bluecoat devices have a custom SSH
| shell for managing them, but you can drop into a regular bash
| shell with the root password. Can't say that I used it, but it
| was reassuring to know that I could get vi or something if
| their shell fell apart.
| aeurielesn wrote:
| To be honest, I still don't understand the appeal of this
| product. I've always got a "one-time quick-cash hustle" video out
| of it and I can't trust it.
| nicklecompte wrote:
| I would never purchase this myself, but it seems most people
| are buying it as a toy or trinket, not as a productivity
| device.
|
| I can't judge them too much considering how much actual grownup
| money I've spent on Legos...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In 20 years your Legos will still function just fine, can be
| re-used, can be passed down to new kids or new owners, can be
| integrated in other things etc...
|
| In 5 years this thing will be poisoning some small trash
| picking child in Africa somewhere.
| shmatt wrote:
| I can't think of a single hyped up pre-order that worked out.
| Either
|
| * Everyone else can buy it when the pre orders are delivered
|
| * Due to monetary constraints, regular orders are actually
| shipped before pre-orders
|
| * The device is nothing like it was promised
|
| * The device doesn't exist
|
| The intentions are good (funding without VCs) but I rather the
| VCs lose money than consumers
| rideontime wrote:
| s/video/vibe?
| aeurielesn wrote:
| You're correct. I didn't even notice the typo until now!
| mritchie712 wrote:
| It's not a very good cash hustle if people actually use it.
| From what I can tell, it's a one time $200 payment and you can
| use the LLM indefinitely. If the device costs $100 to produce
| and ship that's only $100 left to cover compute... forever.
|
| It seems they want the compute to run on device, but that
| doesn't seem to be the case right now[0]. I don't know the
| specs of the device, but pretty sure it'd have to cost more
| than $200 to run an LLM locally.
|
| edit: 128 gigs of storage and four gigs of RAM. For llama3-8b
| (the smallest llama3 model) you need at least 8GB of RAM.
|
| 0 - https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/18/24043490/rabbit-r1-ai-
| per...
| woleium wrote:
| i believe its a 12 month license to use the llm, but still,
| that's nearly 200 by itself, so it seems like a sensible
| option to get both.
| paxys wrote:
| It is most definitely selling at a loss and trying to
| generate enough hype to get acquired.
| extesy wrote:
| I highly doubt Teenage Engineering is looking to be
| acquired.
| jsheard wrote:
| Teenage Engineering aren't the ones who would be
| acquired, they just did the industrial design work on
| contract for Rabbit. The same way TE designed the
| Playdate but it's not a TE product.
| omnimus wrote:
| Its amazing TE has such a brand that people think these
| are their products.
| jsheard wrote:
| You'd definitely know if it were TE's own product because
| the price would have an extra zero on the end.
| paxys wrote:
| I doubt anyone outside of a handful of HN commenters
| knows Teenage Engineering.
| kaoD wrote:
| Anyone interested in synthesizers knows TE.
| RIMR wrote:
| Anyone interested in demystifying TE should look at the
| PC case they designed. They sell polished turds, they
| just didn't polish that one enough for it not to stand
| out as a complete piece of crap.
| karmajunkie wrote:
| i apparently ordered one impulsively while i was... in an
| altered state, let's say. (in my defense, iirc i wanted to
| evaluate it as a device for a family member with a
| neurodegenerative disease to use for some daily online
| activities...)
|
| based on that appeal, i'd say you're probably correct in that
| assessment.
| tb1989 wrote:
| Doesn't surprise me. In my opinion, many companies try to achieve
| outrageous premiums by taking the route of teen engineering (the
| originator of hype). In addition to rabbit, there is also a
| series of nothing products.
|
| This doesn't convince the tech fetishists. In fact, I think te's
| contribution to music is very limited, even harmful, especially
| when I see the latest Yamaha even imitating te, which feels a bit
| funny and ridiculous. We need real innovation and democratic
| pricing.
|
| By the way, if you care, you can learn about the history of
| rabbit's founder. Let's just say, in certain circles, this is a
| recognized liar. So I'm not surprised at all when it was said a
| few days ago that Rabbit stole everyone's passwords.
| rideontime wrote:
| Care to elaborate, for the curious? A quick google on Jesse Lyu
| doesn't turn up much besides his own hype. Although he does
| appear to at least be obfuscating the truth, failing to admit
| that the only reason the "bootleg APK" isn't working is because
| of an IMEI whitelist.
|
| Update: They've barely tightened up, now the only missing piece
| is the OS build fingerprint.
| https://twitter.com/uwukko/status/1785626783900930447/
| datpiff wrote:
| I don't like most of TE's output but the OP-1 is definitely
| innovative.
| tb1989 wrote:
| as innovative as rabbit r1
| tb1989 wrote:
| Apparently, TE knows this Rabbit person's background as we
| are talking about millions dollar business. TE's values here
| are questionable when they decide to go with this guy.
|
| As for OP1, packaging a tape effect when it can't produce
| good sound quality is a fraud. Sampling from FM? Check Klaus
| Schulze.. Music startups can certainly innovate, such as Roli
| (Seaboard and Rise), moog. make noise. Open source monome.
| and, to my sorrow, Emilie Gillet (Mutable Instruments). TE's
| innovation in music itself is far inferior to them. If you
| praise te, I think it is unfair to other people who are
| obsessed with technological innovation.
|
| I have always felt that TE is a electronics company with no
| innovation in hardcore technology. The appearance and
| packaging are different from previous ones, but there is not
| enough practical integration. Of course, this is just my
| personal opinion. If you disagree, you can write down your
| opinion. Thank you.
| Bjartr wrote:
| I would love to know about any other device that ticks the
| boxes the OP-1 does:
|
| * Battery powered * Easily backpack portable
|
| * Standalone DAW
|
| * Piano layout
|
| * Physical knobs and keys
|
| * Sequencer
|
| * Screen (and accompanying UI) large enough to not feel
| incredibly cramped
|
| That's plenty of stuff that beats the OP-1 on plenty of
| these, but there just isn't much out there that hits all of
| them at once.
| tb1989 wrote:
| an iphone + korg nano series 2 :)
| Bjartr wrote:
| That's not standalone, that's two pieces.
| omneity wrote:
| try the latest Ableton Push, or NI Maschine+
| jibe wrote:
| I don't why it should surprise, or bother, anyone that it is
| running android. Totally reasonable choice. What does it say
| that it is treated like some sort of gotcha? Were they supposed
| to build their own AIOS?
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| because if it's just an android app, you have to wonder why
| it's not just an app
| bagels wrote:
| I thought that before I knew it was running android.
| temac wrote:
| Because they want to develop their own idependent
| ecosystem? Similarly, why does Amazon Fire OS exists?
|
| I mean the question is kind of vaguely legitimate, but
| _regardeless_ of how it is implemented one could ask why it
| is not an Android app instead. They thought about it and
| made other choices, and might not want to publicly list all
| the reasons that made them choose what they did...
| MBCook wrote:
| Because no one wants to pay for apps?
| pembrook wrote:
| This one actually makes a lot of sense to me.
|
| Just from a pure marketing perspective, look at all the
| insane hype they were able to generate due to possibility
| of a new physical form factor.
|
| There's no way in hell they could have generated $10M in
| pre-orders and potentially hundreds of millions in earned
| media coverage for the 700th app that's basically a
| chatgpt api wrapper.
| MBCook wrote:
| You're absolutely right, it would "just be an app" and
| have a much harder time getting noticed.
|
| But I really meant what I said too. It doesn't matter how
| great your thing is, people complain to high health about
| spending $.99 on it. And God forbid you want to
| subscription even if it's only $2 a year. And don't ask
| for an IAP of any kind.
|
| The app market is a disaster of ads because almost no one
| will accept anything else.
|
| Even if everything ran fully on the device so they didn't
| have any server costs of any kind I think they'd have a
| very very hard time making money off an app unless it was
| incredibly extraordinary.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| One reason was mentioned in the article:
|
| _After all, the Rabbit R1's launcher app is intended to be
| preinstalled in the firmware and be granted several
| privileged, system-level permissions -- only some of which
| we were able to grant -- so some of the functions would
| likely fail if we tried_
|
| And the statement from Rabbit in the article says
| essentially the same:
|
| _rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP
| and lower level firmware modifications, therefore a local
| bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won't
| be able to access our service_
| wmf wrote:
| Are these privileged system-level permissions in the room
| with us now? What specifically are they?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| why are you so incredulous that android might have some
| annoying privacy restrictions that a custom AOSP can
| sidestep? I would google rabbit's reasoning for this but
| I don't care enough
| tredre3 wrote:
| > why are you so incredulous that android might have some
| annoying privacy restrictions that a custom AOSP can
| sidestep?
|
| I don't doubt that such restrictions exist. But I'm also
| curious as to what, specifically, they would be? Apps can
| access all sensors, cameras, microphone, network. So
| what's left?
| tripdout wrote:
| You can CTRL-F here https://developer.android.com/referen
| ce/android/Manifest.per... for "signature" and view
| permissions that are only granted to apps signed with the
| platform key, i.e. built into the system image as part of
| the AOSP build process.
|
| There's a good number that might be useful for the R1.
| wmf wrote:
| Their official reasoning: "rabbit OS and LAM run on the
| cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware
| modifications".
| https://twitter.com/rabbit_hmi/status/1785498453097009473
| This reads like obfuscation to me. Just tell us in plain
| english!
| dan_quixote wrote:
| > why it's not just an app
|
| If it's just an app...their hardware has no reason to exist
| AND they are competing directly with Google/Microsoft.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I don't get why people would pay for a bright orange box,
| or a snazzy little pin, when you can do the exact same
| thing with a phone app. Siri and Google's offering on
| Android phones will eliminate this market when they start
| in on this stuff. I don't see why any company making an
| AI widget would be valued high, unless they're trying to
| get bought by Apple.
| nikcub wrote:
| Twitter thread on rabbit's founder and his previous involvement
| with NFTs that he scrubbed:
|
| https://twitter.com/Andyparackal/status/1785676408280498655
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Pikachu's everywhere were shocked.
|
| This is just the same guy, over and over. If he isn't too
| old, I bet he was into dropshipping too. Always on whatever
| new grift, always ready to start selling shovels to gold
| miners. I wish people were smarter about this stuff.
| devmunchies wrote:
| building a hardware company and shipping thousands of
| devices doesn't seem like a get-rich-quick grift to me.
| There are a lot of things rabbit can do that you couldn't
| do on an app since they own the hardware. Just shipped it
| too soon.
|
| The product is definitely not super appealing to me yet in
| the current state.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think at the very least it's a kind of trend-chasing.
| If the AI hype dies down a bit will Rabbit AI continue
| supporting their product and customers or are they going
| to wipe their online presence and move on to the next
| trend like with the NFT thing?
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I don't even think in this case it's a matter of the AI
| hype dying down (though it is, and will continue to do so
| as products like these fail to get actually useful) I
| think this is just a complete nonstarter. Like, there's
| just nothing here that isn't better executed with
| existing tech. If I want to ask my phone to order a
| pizza, I can set that up in a lot of apps with Siri
| shortcuts, or, and far more likely, just open the damn
| app and pick what I want. Why the shit do I want to carry
| around a Rabbit, and make sure it has wifi access, and
| keep that also on my person next to my phone that does
| all that shit already?
|
| It's literally just another smartphone, that you only
| control with your voice which is the worst way to control
| a smart phone, and it'll offer suggestions I guess? And I
| guess if you don't want the suggestions you need to have
| a whole fuckin conversation with it.
|
| Like, we've already been down this road. It's
| tremendously easy as a customer to just be presented a
| list of things to buy, pick what you want, and swipe your
| credit card. Rabbit is a regression to ordering things
| with a phone, except instead of talking to a person,
| you're talking to a robot. But that's not an improvement,
| and in fact in many ways, it's a step back.
|
| I just, I cannot fathom who wants this.
| viscanti wrote:
| Well the unit economics don't make any sense. You get
| unlimited free LLM calls forever? I don't really see the
| argument for it shipping too soon (although it is too
| soon for what they're claiming). There's a basic unit
| economics problem that can't be solved regardless of
| their future roadmap. They're promising people a no
| subscription model, claiming it eventually will have a
| Large Action Model and LLM for question and answering,
| and somehow those will be available free forever? It's
| either a get-rich-quick scheme, which sounds likely given
| their background as crypto grifters, or complete
| incompetence (somehow no one there ever thought what it
| might cost to do inference). Neither seems like a legit
| company that just shipped too soon.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I haven't heard anything about the Rabbit R1, what is it supposed
| to be? Based on the video it looks like this is just Google
| Assistant except not by Google, what makes it different from a
| normal phone?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| for one, its not a phone (it cant make calls)
|
| https://www.rabbit.tech/
| rideontime wrote:
| It also doubles as a low-range space heater.
| woleium wrote:
| google wont allow alternative voice assistants on android, so
| they had little choice.
| alphabetting wrote:
| ?? Bixby and Alexa are on Android.
| jsheard wrote:
| And it's pluggable at the system level so the global
| shortcuts that default to Google Assistant can be made to
| point to a third party provider instead.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| What are you talking about?
|
| "Assistant App" is a setting in the settings app where any
| assistant can be enabled. API is documented in the SDK docs
| doix wrote:
| So as far as I can tell, this is a pay $200 once and use AI
| infinitely device. Are the keys inside the APK? What's stopping
| someone just using these guys OpenAI (or whatever they use)
| service for free?
| paxys wrote:
| I can guarantee that somewhere in the terms and conditions
| there's a buried line that says that they are not obligated to
| operate the AI features for free forever.
| turtlebits wrote:
| As a rushed/unfinished product, I'd be highly skeptical if
| there was any form of security. Might get implemented once
| someone abuses it.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| > As a rushed/unfinished product
|
| What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished?
|
| I agree with the sentiment that it's a _bad_ product with
| _bad_ choices and _bad_ strategy. It was likely caused by
| shitty ZIRP-era "MVP product without the 'viable'" mentality,
| rather than caused by rushing an unfinished product.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > What led you to believe it was rushed and/or unfinished?
|
| The very feel of every demo and the product itself
| rfwhyte wrote:
| I'm 100% convinced the Rabbit R1 and the Humane Pin are in fact
| not AI "Assistants" but rather "AI" spying / user data harvesting
| devices. This is the reason their batteries deplete so fast.
| They're constantly sending your data back to some shady company
| to be sold to the highest bidder and / or given to foreign
| governments.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| Humane actually worked really hard to do security the right way
| fwiw. They have to send your queries to OpenAI etc but they
| aren't straight up harvesting passwords. They probably save
| your queries and pictures to train their models but what else
| would you expect.
|
| Rabbit on the other hand...don't give them your passwords!
|
| Saying this as someone who won't waste money on the Humane pin
| but ordered an R1 for fun. Wish Humane got the price point (and
| a lot of other things) right. Like focusing on device latency
| and integrating Spotify instead of trying to boil the ocean and
| integrating only Tidal.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Man, that keynote vibe is creepy.
| padjo wrote:
| Isn't the action engine or whatever they're calling it just a
| load of playwright scripts? Or was that some other hokey AI
| device?
| dang wrote:
| Related:
| https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837
|
| (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40223247, but we merged
| that thread hither)
| wg0 wrote:
| Basic appeal is about form factor. Underlying OS is an
| Implementation detail. It could very well be running Minix or
| BSD.
|
| And towards that end, it seems these devices are underpowered,
| drain batteries faster, require an Internet trip to do anything
| and that anything could often easily be hallucinations.
|
| And that's where these AI devices don't seem to have a chance to
| ever even a dedicated user base.
| joshl32532 wrote:
| > Basic appeal is about form factor.
|
| It would be much more appealing to me as a watch. Since it can
| at least tell time, and I don't need to carry it around in my
| pocket, which I'm already carrying a phone and a wallet. I'll
| need a 3rd pocket for this?
|
| Much quicker to access for quick question, take voice notes
| too.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| This product feels like it is ahead of its time. Local processing
| will be readily available eventually. Better solutions for
| display of information and ingest of local data.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Local processing will also be available on your phone. A
| separate device for this makes no sense in any universe.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| All this thing does is send off an API request to chat GPT or
| something else like it. As is you can give chat GPT an image and
| it'll read it for you, and interpret it or whatnot.
|
| You can just use Chat GPT on your phone and get 90% of the same
| experience. But then it's a matter of branding. To some it's
| cooler to use a toy like this. Sorta like how Beats headphones
| are often beaten by headphones costing a 1/3rd.
|
| Edit: At 200$ I'm not mad, it's ultimately a toy. Much better
| than the AI pin costing 700$ + 25$ a month.
| wmf wrote:
| You're forgetting the app automation features (that currently
| don't work well).
| marcinzm wrote:
| Nothing about those features is specific to this device.
| OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built in
| phone integration. In fact those companies have more data,
| more compute, more experience and more end users which
| matters a lot for AI. And most importantly,
| OpenAI/Google/Apple can basically get app developers to add
| any missing details into their apps. Rabbit can't.
| sniggers wrote:
| >OpenAI can do it in their app, or Google/Apple as a built
| in phone integration
|
| Have they done so or described any upcoming plans to do so?
| Rabbit is doing it now.
|
| Man this site is so anti-hacker it's insane. Probably
| because it's 90% big tech employees that are actively hurt
| by startups shaking things up. Should be renamed
| 999900000999 wrote:
| You're talking about a $200 closed source box which is
| basically a strip down phone.
|
| Hacker is more like yo I built this myself with a
| raspberry pi, here's the source code to get it working.
| We have every right to criticize commercial products,
| particularly when they're not really doing anything
| unique.
| sniggers wrote:
| Which is more "hacker" - Rabbit or Google?
| threeseed wrote:
| Google I/O is 2 weeks away. WWDC is 6 weeks.
|
| And we know both companies have plans for enhanced
| assistants this year.
|
| And this isn't a hacker device. It's not open source or
| easily modifiable.
| marcinzm wrote:
| > Rabbit is doing it now.
|
| You mean Perplexity, Anthropic, and OpenAI are doing so
| now. Rabbit is just using their models.
|
| Also, Startups are not hackers.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| It sounds like this product isn't where it should be, and likely
| shipped too early.
|
| That said long term I want them or others to succeed.
|
| The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a world
| where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting mobile AI
| products.
|
| As any phone OS integrated Apple AI or Google AI will beat out
| any shipped apps store AI app long term.
|
| If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly
| then I wish them all the best.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that
| duopoly then I wish them all the best.
|
| The only real allure of a separate device, for me, is isolating
| the bot from my data. I don't want it reading my emails and
| notifications and who knows what else. I suppose you could also
| market this for kids but they didn't go that route.
| cowsup wrote:
| Marketing it to children means you have to start worrying
| about COPPA (if in the US, where Rabbit is HQ'd) or similar
| legislation elsewhere. An AI device that accepts voice input
| and is supposed to learn and adapt to your use-case is at
| ends with laws that say you cannot collect any information
| from children -- not even an email address or username.
| outlore wrote:
| That is my thought as well. But then, wouldn't it be better
| to get a separate cheap phone and install ChatGPT or Claude
| on it?
|
| Purely from a hardware perspective, a phone has all the
| sensors, chips etc needed for AI applications, so I'm puzzled
| why Humane and Rabbit thought that a standalone device was a
| better idea.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Their product doesn't make any sense besides as an app. No one
| is going to carry a separate device around when your smartphone
| can do everything it can better. The chatGPT app on the iPhone
| already does everything the rabbit does better. They offer
| nothing.
| sniggers wrote:
| The ChatGPT app requires a subscription, and offers no "Large
| Action Model" behavior (i.e. API tie-in to perform actions on
| other apps like Spotify/Doordash/Uber/Midjourney). The former
| is a nice bonus (10 months of ChatGPT $20 sub = one time
| purchase price of Rabbit R1), the latter has the potential in
| its fully realized form to make Rabbit infinitely more useful
| as an assistant.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| ChatGPT has an app ecosystem that absolutely allows you to
| control other apps.
| sniggers wrote:
| Are you referring to this?
| https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plugins
|
| Rabbit's approach is one-sided (train their model to
| generate needed API calls, and maybe also perform
| Selenium-style simulated actions?) which should make it
| more flexible if inherently less reliable than dedicated
| plugins written by developers from the apps looking to be
| called via AI
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Having to rely on one company to train their API calls
| makes it less flexible and less reliable except maybe for
| the largest apps. Even if they did it better than chatGPT
| (and I don't think they can), that would be the thinnest
| of moats.
| lozenge wrote:
| None of those features require the Rabbit hardware though.
| There isn't an LLM in the Rabbit itself, it's just
| connecting to a remote server.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a
| world where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting
| mobile AI products.
|
| I think the thing people _should_ want is on-device AI.
|
| Because I honestly don't see the advantage in terms of privacy
| or performance to have Rabbit R1 proxy my requests to chatgpt
| or other cloud LLMs... At that point I might as well use Google
| AI or Apple AI instead of adding 2+ parties to my private AI
| use.
| frappuccino_o wrote:
| Running android is actually a good decision. We should celebrate
| it rather than scold Rabbit's founders. Creating OS is hard.
| Selling smart and intriguing devices for $200 is also hard. They
| had to pick one.
| RIMR wrote:
| The issue is that Rabbit's founders marketed the R1 device as
| having abilities that surpass that of your smartphone. They
| sold the device as if it itself actually does something useful
| that your existing devices can't.
|
| But now we can see that it is just a weird shaped Android phone
| hard-coded to only run one app. It shatters the illusion that
| the R1 hardware was worth the $200 price tag, as the software
| under-the-hood could be equally if not more functional if it
| were just distributed as an app instead of as a piece of
| hardware.
|
| It would be different if the hardware had special sensors and
| processors that help maximize its functionality. There would be
| no issue for AOSP to be the base OS - in fact I would agree
| with your assessment that it was a good decision that should e
| celebrated. The hardware itself having novel capabilities would
| be the important aspect, not the OS they chose to build upon.
|
| Absent any special hardware functionality, it throws the entire
| Rabbit business model into question. They aren't charging
| licensing fees, and the service itself seems to be a lifetime
| subscription, so they aren't planning on making money selling
| software or SaaS services. The profit-making part of this
| business is selling hardware - and the hardware is just a worse
| version of the phone you already have...
|
| The software also seems barely useful. Pretty much just a bare-
| bones implementation of speech-to-text, GPT via REST API, and
| text-to-speech, with a handful of basic integrations.
|
| So once they've sold you the hardware, do they have any reason
| at all to improve the software or the service's offerings? If
| the R1 hardware can't do anything your phone can't, can they
| really compete with an app (even a paid app) that does the same
| thing on your almost certainly higher-spec'd smartphone?
|
| Given the founders' history of grifting, I am going to guess
| that the R1 hardware costs Rabbit <$50, and that the company
| will soon disappear, taking down any expensive cloud-based AI
| functionality with them, as soon as they feel they've sold
| enough units to line their pockets with the profits, and the R1
| owners will be left with a brick.
| starky wrote:
| I saw this news and my reaction was, "Of course it is, doing
| anything else would be stupid." But that on its own doesn't mean
| it could just be a phone app if the hardware adds something
| useful to the way the user interacts with it. For example, old
| Sony mirrorless cameras just ran Android under the hood but the
| specific hardware is what made those products, not the OS.
|
| As a hardware person, both the Rabbit R1 and the Humane pin are
| great examples of why I'm bored of today's technology in general.
| It feels like we have been caught in a cycle of minor spec
| increases and not much else (except maybe removing
| features/rights and shoehorning in a subscription) for the
| majority of technology we interact with day to day. Companies are
| desperately trying to come up with a new device class that will
| take off, but they all fail in the same way, nothing is solving
| real problems that people experience. Who wants to talk to
| something clipped on their shirt instead of pulling out the phone
| they already have? You don't see people in public talking to the
| assistant on their phone very often do you? Even if they worked
| well, these are likely destined to be niche products.
|
| It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to
| advance before we can get to the next set of interesting
| products. I'm thinking unobtrusive AR, robotics, self-driving,
| etc. which are all going to take some time to mature to the point
| where they are practical.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology
| to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting
| products.
|
| Probably. I think we've hit a plateau with user interfaces for
| most connected gear. Sticking a physical scroll button on what
| is essentially a phone buys me nothing but annoyance. Phones
| just kind of do what we want and have an acceptable enough
| interface that the alternatives get in our way.
|
| The Humane Pin added the laser display but ... nobody wants it?
| This is starting to feel like sticking a spoiler on a phone and
| pretending it adds value. Maybe VCs are impressed by this
| stuff, I don't know.
|
| If there were a magic version of this it would have the model
| and processing onboard. That's obviously extremely cost
| prohibitive right now, but that's what it's going to take to
| create a real AI-powered assistant:
|
| * I need it to work without network latency.
|
| * I need multiple forms of input/output depending on the
| context.
|
| * I don't need Teenage Engineering's usual form-over-function
| design. I need the form to be out of my way most of the time.
|
| It's great that people are experimenting in this space. It's
| less great that people are getting multiple millions in funding
| and selling a phone and web service as an "AI device." This
| will hurt future development.
| graypegg wrote:
| I feel similarly hopeful actually!
|
| I think people do seem generally annoyed by the scroll wheel,
| but I think that's just a bad implementation in this case. I
| don't think that means that all physical controls (meaning: not
| a touch screen) are just pointless gimmicks. It's a bit myopic
| to think we've hit some perfect un-challengable UI paradigm
| with flickable scrolling and sheets of software buttons and
| fields that you tap.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Rabbit has reached out to Android Authority with a statement
| from its founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu. The statement argues that
| the R1's interface is not an app
|
| Followed by a demo of someone copying the APK and the whole thing
| more or less working... I think Lyu forgot that the statement was
| for androidauthority.com (where people who understand android
| hang out) and not for his 80-year-old-uncle...
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