Me watching WWDC: “Android already does that.”
Me watching Google I/O “iOS already does that.”
Microsoft: “I think we really nailed this phone UI. We should make this the desktop computer experience too.”
I would argue that it’s the nature of having a mature and complex product. Adding new stuff is hard because you have a lot of legacy code / UX that you have to accommodate for. You need to move slower because it’s easier to break stuff in a more mature product.
I’d also argue that Apple and Google’s research teams are generally hearing the similar stuff out of their end users, so it’s to be expected that both companies are going to prioritize similar functionality.
That was my experience when I’ve worked on massive products. The complexity of the product impacts development speed, and shared understandings of user desires results in similar feature sets between competitors.
Yes. Android already does all these things. But I think the things I’m excited most about are not on this list at all.
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A private local LLM. With the on-device context of my notes, messages, calendar, etc, I’m rather excited to have a more personal LLM than ChatGPT.
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Personal messaging via satellite. I love that I can stay in touch with people outside of a cell network.
Did I understand correctly that this is only going to be in the iPhone 15 pro? Because that’s a lot more expensive than a pixel, more than I’d ever spend on a phone tbh.
A private local LLM. With the on-device context of my notes, messages, calendar, etc, I’m rather excited to have a more personal LLM than ChatGPT.
No need to wait for iOS 18 to have that: https://llmfarm.site/
That’s great, but the fact it’s local and private means it can consume my personal data and be a more personal LLM. This just doesn’t hit that mark.
A private local LLM
Running on a phone? No way, not without being absolutely horrible, slow or making your phone churn through your battery anyway.
Good LLMs are olready slow on a GTX 1080, which is already miles faster than any phone out there
I hear you, but also I would be shocked if Apple were to roll this out and it be an absolutely terrible experience. Like their MO is “luxury” products with “premium” experiences, it would not be fitting of the brand to have a piece of crap experience on their flagship announcement.
I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
It’s not a LLM, it’s a much smaller model (~3B) which is closer to what Microsoft labels as a SLM (Small Language Models, e.g. MS Phi-3 Mini).
https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/introducing-apple-foundation-models
Microsoft’s penchant for making up names for thing that already have names is neither here nor there. It is an LLM, in fact its already twice as large as chatGPT2 (1.5B params).
I think It’s running on their “Private cloud compute” platform, not locally (I’m not sure though)
I’m an android user but honestly bored of hearing this shit every single year. “Android already does that” yeah, we know. It’s like having a friend that is constantly trying to one-up you, or trying to steal attention away from you at your own birthday party.
As long as you own the fact that you paid more money for an inferior product because you think it will make you look cool.
I use Apple because it’s easier to manage a grandma and a daughter. Android is great if you’re technologically adept and can install a custom ROM, but I don’t want that freedom for my “users”. Grandma used to have an Android phone for years. I’d have to clean that thing out every few months because she would just click on shit. I switched her to iPhone and now when I check, there’s far less nonsense going on. It’s just easier to be the family admin this way. There are numerous other things that Android can also do, better, and for free, but at the cost of one’s time. It’s a trade off I’m willing to make. I reject the notion Apple is outright inferior; by which criteria? It’s also not about looking cool. Everyone has smartphones and they’re not special like they may have been in the 2000s. They’re the most commodified computer people use around the world. There’s no phone that makes you cool regardless of brand. It’s a fucking phone.
I would say the days of needing to flash ROMS is over, and Android is much more user friendly than it used to be. Especially if you’re on Pixel or Galaxy phones. My Mom, who’s almost 70, uses a Galaxy 21 FE, and loves it.
Not sure about the parental controls, etc that might help with keeping an eye on loved ones though.
Android can do satellite messaging? Android phone makers are shipping on device LLMs?
I’m not an Apple fanboy nor do I use an iPhone currently but this headline is ridiculous.
Satellite messaging is already available in Android 15 beta
Perhaps in software, but I don’t think there is a current phone that has the hardware to take advantage. For now, this is essentially an Apple only feature. It’s a pretty good bet we are going to see some flagships released with it in the next year though.
I know that Pixel 7’s and above support it. There are Reddit posts showing they have the feature already. Satellite messaging is just using standard 4G/LTE from Starlink. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is only an OS update away for most newer phones.
Correct. It needs hardware and will only be on flagships, if the OEM includes it…
Another nice feature on the latest iPhone is the UWB chip egg even the older models have but now you can find another iPhone 15 user in a crowd if they share their location. The UWB chip will guide you right to them
I’ve wanted something like this for at least a decade for when my wife and I get separated in the Mall so that instead of calling her to see where she is (and she often doesn’t hear it ringing) I’d be able to just use the phone to lead me to her… Pretty useful in real life. And it also works for your misplaced tracker tile, air pods, iPad etc
But is Android doing the on device LLM already? Because it sounds like they aren’t…
https://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-get-gemini-nano-on-pixel-8-8a-3450466/
Pixel 8 pro already does. I’m not sure, but I think Samsung has something too.
Android phone makers are shipping on device LLMs?
Do people actually want these?
Yes, in fact that is the only kind of ai i would ever use and entrust my data to. Not the apple one, but an open source model that is running only on my device and answering only to me; using the data I provide only for my interests? That one I would use.
I bet these LLM models wont be 100% locally hosted. I imagine some form of data will be piped back to a cloud server
LLM is AI correct? If my phone is going to do AI at all, I prefer it be done on device for sure. For privacy reasons if nothing else. But it’s not anything I’ve really looked into. I have the S24 and the only AI feature I use is the Circle to search… which I don’t consider to be AI.
LLM is a form of AI, specifically the text AIs like ChatGPT that have suddenly made “AI” a dinner table term. AI in some form or another is almost definitely being used in your device - even for things like filling in gaps in low-quality voice calls, and probably has been for a while. But the problem is that unlike those “old” AIs, LLMs require some significant power to run, so running them on phones will probably require meaningful trade-offs. But the increased security is also a meaningful benefit.
As much as I hate apple and google, I want a future where all these can be done locally without massive servers and sending all data to cloud . Apple clearly have a edge over google in that regards.
Ah, you mean like the sync that Palm OS used to have? Yup, that was neat, and I’m still waiting for Android to pick up some of the neat features from back then.
I miss palm OS. I think it had some undeniable jank but it also had great features and a bit of “charm”. I’m pretty sure I still remember most of the Graffiti alphabet!
I totally bought a Palm off eBay few months ago. It’s been fun to use Palm OS 5 again. I got a model that actually has WiFi, which was also interesting to set up a AP that was compatible with it.
One I got had a dead battery, ordered a new one, it was so much nicer to open the old tech and replace the battery. Just screw and little solder. No glue and impossible small stuff to work with.
It definitely comes at a cost though. The private local models will be inherently dumber because of less compute and smaller data sets.
And, unfortunately, this is a hard thing to communicate to the public. All they know is that Assistant responded to a request better than Siri.
