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.
> 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.
I vehemently disagree with both of these statements.
For one, as far as I can tell every single hardware feature on the Rabbit (sans rotary encoder) has been present on every phone I've owned since 2011. Forward and rear-facing camera - check, nice bright touchscreen - check, speaker and mic - check... it's all there. Rabbit's "ecosystem" excuse is just as hollow as when literally any other company does it. They're trying to project a halo-effect, and too many people fell for it. Are there any software features that are exclusively enabled by Rabbit's form factor?
For two, waiting to ship it probably wouldn't have solved it either. Humane got absolutely humiliated last week with their own offering, it was a now-or-never opportunity to stage them up or let them set the tone forever. I don't think interest in AI or AI-focused hardware is liable to skyrocket any more than cryptocurrency-focused hardware was. Both of these things are software solutions; using it to sell you physical hardware is a 100% pure marketing gimmeck.
I will slightly disagree with your first point. I also partially agree though. I agree that every smart phone has most of the hardware of the Rabbit R1. But, just because the hardware is there, that doesn't mean the hardware manufacturer provides APIs/callbacks/hooks to third party developers for every capability of that hardware and operating system. The software developer has to build within the confines of the OEM. Building your own hardware, or at least building your own firmware and OS for open hardware, lets you do more with that same hardware.
Now, if we're talking about the OEMs building Rabbit-like features into their phones then that I agree with, and I hope (and assume) that's what will happen now. Rabbit has already shown some features that our smartphones should be able to do quite easily, such as sending a selected photo by text or email. My hope is that Rabbit pushes Apple and Google to build some of the low hanging fruit into their phones/operating systems soon.
I agree with you on hardware but I'm not talking about hardware. I'm talking about UX. There is a huge difference between being iOS and being an app on iOS as far as access to the user of the device. There is no way to innovate on novel notification mechanisms, for example.
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?
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'm a millennial and I hate talking on the phone, but I don't want to talk to a robot, either. Just give me the damn app with menus and stuff and I'll browse them at my convenience and then pick what I want.
And even if I did want to talk to a robot, I'd rather just use the gadget that I already have for talking into, not yet another thing to lug around, keep charged etc.
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.
While the rabbit, based on reviews I've seen, doesn't live up to its hype yet, AI assistants won't be able to do anything you can't do yourself on a smartphone or regular laptop.
Instead, the idea is they will be able to do these things for you, similar to a human assistant. Currently only rich people can afford assistants to manage their lives for them. This could be about to change.
But again: why do you want that? The pizza example is downright stupid, in no world would anyone prefer to tell an assistant, robot or otherwise, to order them a pizza. It's such a trivial task that outsourcing it to another entity, irrespective of what kind, is just less efficient, full stop.
And, even going for their big example: why would you want to outsource the planning of an overseas trip?! Planning a trip is the FUN part for goodness sakes! Choosing your destinations and building an itinerary. The only way I could see this is if you're so drowned in money and so utterly dead inside from years of casual overseas vacations that you just don't give a shit where you go anymore, and like, fair enough but a virtual assistant is not going to solve the yawning chasm of meaninglessness in your soul. You should probably see a therapist about that.
All of these things feel like faint imitations of something like JARVIS from the Iron Man movies, and look, if it worked like that as just a disembodied voice built into my home, and my cars, and my armored battle suit and my cell phones, hell yeah I'd have that. But the only way I would accept any technology that invasive is if I was running it on my own hardware, I will never, ever, in a thousand years give over that much hardware and privileged access to another pop-up company from silicon valley.
You're projecting so hard you might hurt yourself.
> in no world would anyone prefer to tell an assistant, robot or otherwise, to order them a pizza.
Sure they would, I'm one of them, I know many more.
> It's such a trivial task that outsourcing it to another entity, irrespective of what kind, is just less efficient, full stop.
Perhaps for you. As someone with a spinal cord injury whom at many times can not work a keyboard or a phone, a far simpler ability to get things done with my voice is something i've been looking forward too for some time and I hope continues to progress, especially as I age and things become more difficult.
> Planning a trip is the FUN part for goodness sakes!
What you enjoy and others enjoy is not the same. Your view of the world and what does and does not constitute a good time is not the benchmark or standard for anyone other than yourself. Again, you're projecting.
> I will never, ever, in a thousand years give over that much hardware and privileged access to another pop-up company from silicon valley.
I'd love for the iPod to come back. I have a small DAP, the Shanling M0, but it has not the iPod ergonomics. A phone can do what the DAP does, but not the way it does it. A better phone ergonomics would probably be a PDA.
(I'm not defending Rabbit R1 and I think it's useless).
I am not sure how active it is still but there was a pretty healthy ipod modding community a few years back if you are eager for those ergonomics with modern functionality.
The product is definitely not super appealing to me yet in the current state.