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Comment by comboy | Hacker News Reader

Their version of LLM should be fun, they have their silicon, they can make it local and integrate with the ecosystem.

Going by Siri, they are behind competition by a wide margin.

I don't think Siri's quality is a good indication of Apple's ability to come out with a successful LLM product in the future.

One thing I think about is how Alexa is apparently considered a failure at Amazon (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...). Alexa devices sell well but people only use them for trivial use cases that are hard to monetize.

I speculate that Apple doesn't see a need to invest in Siri because the market has shown that digital assistants don't synergize with "services" that well.

Additionally, I don't think that Apple will need to leverage the "Siri codebase" as a starting point for releasing a compelling LLM codebase - maybe voice recognition, but who knows.

Apple has shown through other product launches that they will take a "wait and see" approach and release something when its ready.

If that's the case, why do they keep releasing HomePods?

They’re a fabulous Bluetooth speaker if nothing else

HomePods "synergize" well with Apple Music subscriptions.

I also think they're a protective measure to keep people from getting someone else's smart device, which might lead you into someone else's ecosystem.

I think this is a fair point. Taking a look at the product page for the $300 HomePod (https://www.apple.com/homepod-2nd-generation/), I would argue that the HomePod is marketed more as a speaker with Siri integration rather than a Siri device with a really good speaker.

The bullet points I see on the above page, in order, are - really good speaker - Siri integration - integrates with Apple ecosystem for playing music - smart home integration - "private and secure" whatever that means

So, it's not clear to me that "a better Siri" would necessarily result in selling X amount more speakers to make Siri a worthy investment while investing in better audio technology does because it's the main selling point for HomePods.

Homepods are great to pair with Apple TVs for stereo sound.

A major issue with Apple and LLM is that they pledged data privacy. I don’t think they’re training on anything special.

They keep releasing new hardware that could really use a much better Siri (AirPods, HomePod, Watch, and now Vision) so the ongoing lack of a quality voice UI is embarrassing.

I very much think it has to be in their near future.

LLM from apple? I tried dozens of voice assistants in my life and non of them was worse than Siri by a very large margin. I can't even remember a single time I got a useful answer from Siri and 90% of the time, it was not even able to understand what I said (no problems with other assistants).

I agree, this will probably be more impactful than the Vision Pro. Making all their products way more useful. You can already run Llama on a Mac and it’s pretty great. When Apple release theirs it will probably be a very nice experience.

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