Apple releases MGIE, an AI-based image editing model

Why is Meta the wildcard? Meta has the largest track record of open sourcing everything. From hardware (OpenCompute suite of releases ) to pretty much all software ( HHVM, Hack, Buck, etc etc ) that would benefit wider use.

Even Meta's ML research has a history of open sourcing everything, hello PyTorch. So Llama is just a continuation

Historically, Apple doesn't sell hardware, they sell a combination of software and hardware that are supposedly more tightly integrated than is possible when those things are developed separately. It's interesting and surprising that they would develop and release an open source model.

Inference should ideally be done on an instance with a GPU, and it should have enough GPU VRAM to hold the entire model. This one is only a 7b model, so it should run pretty easily in a modest amount of vram. You can likely run it locally in CPU-only mode, too, though it's likely to be rather slow.

https://instances.vantage.sh/?min_gpus=1 (wait for it to finish loading to filter)

You could try running these in Google Collab (though tweaks would have to be made to load the files), or you might try something like runpod.io, as well, which gets you GPU instances for a lot less than you'd pay with AWS - for example, a Tesla V100 (16GB) community cloud instance runs you $0.24/hr vs the g5g.xlarge which runs you $0.42/hr.

Thanks! I legit had no idea. I retract my earlier comment.

Speaking as a VR enthusiast who has virtually no interest in it: The Vision Pro is an entirely new product relative to any other VR headset I know of. It offers a comprehensive set of computing features (discounting an App Store which has only really just started) that puts it roughly on par with something like iPad OS. I would say it dominates currently for VR headsets if that is what you're after, because it's basically your only option. Desktop computing in VR is possible with things like a Vive or an Index but the experience is entirely different, worse on every front, and is basically done as a workaround in case you need to operate your PC while in VR without taking off the headset. And of course, all of those headsets are (quite intelligent, but remain merely) displays: they require a fairly powerful computer to attach to. There are headsets that operate independently too, like Meta's offerings, but those are much, much, much more restrictive in terms of capability than the Vision Pro.

My interest in VR is basically solely for gaming, so the Vision Pro for me is a complete miss and I have no plans to purchase one. That being said, in the realm of productivity VR, I'd say they are dominating in that they're the sole entrant to the market that I'm aware of and their offering is extremely compelling.

You can run your laptop and other apps with multiple screens as big and layed out where how you want while still having a usable (seeable) keyboard? Is the latency such that you don't get nauseous? Seems useful for productivity. Do other goggles have these feature, yes, but there's a difference between being a toy versus actually being as good/better than how I work now.

Apple is the master of the second mover advantage. Let the existing companies burn money in R&D, but closely monitor how customers perceive their products. What pain points exist that the current companies haven't addressed? What are the pitfalls?

The first mover advantage gives you a chance to get most of the market share, but with Apple's walled garden, they don't need the first mover advantage to do that.

Apple's real SOP is to make white males believe in the inevitability of Apple cultural dominance so they feel inclined to buy anything with the logo on it as a signal

i.e. you convinced yourself Vision Pro was great before ever using it

It's not the hardware, it's the combination of good hardware and software. That's paraphrasing Steve Jobs. He also stated that one of the primary advantages Apple had was software with better usability, generally higher quality software.

> Modern hardware is responsible for AI

No, again, it's the hardware and software. Tensorflow is what formally sparked the AI boom that we're still rolling on, and of course it needed the underlying hardware.

The hardware does nothing without the software. Python and Linux are good software, to name two.

> A decade of crappy Palm, WinCE, and easily forgotten Java based mobile devices came and went before iPhone

Including the Apple Newton, arguably the first handheld device.

Ok, but please edit out swipes at other users ("Someone just noticed"). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Suggests what? SUGGESTS WHAT???

Apple must have got to him...

iPad? Apple watch? Slim laptops (involving aircraft metallurgy tricks)?

Apple's been accused of copycatting practically since the beginning. But if you only copycat, you don't typically last this long. They can always offshore somewhere cheaper if you stand still long enough.

I’m not at all convinced about the inevitable success of the Vision Pro (which I maintain is in its current form, a dev kit being marketed as a mass-consumer device), but this just isn’t true.

To use a few examples that have happened after Apple Maps:

* The Apple Watch — Apple was at least 2 years behind other smartwatches when it launched in 2015 and now it basically owns the category. The first version wasn’t quite there but they nailed it with the series 2 and the pivot from fashion to fitness.

* AirPods - tons of companies had been trying truly wireless headphones for years. I know, I had tested basically every option commercially available. Although imperfect at launch (and the software got better over time for once here), AirPods from the moment I first used them in September of 2016 was category defining and the absolute best truly wireless earbuds you could get on the market, at any price point — even tho the quality was mid. Even now, you can do better than standard AirPods for the price/performance, but it’s hard to top AirPods Pro 2s unless you want to spend significantly more money and sacrifice ecosystem niceties (assuming you’re an iOS user. And the Venn diagram between people who are willing to spend over $250 on truly wireless earbuds and iPhone users is basically a circle).

What I do think is instructive about the Apple Maps example is that when it does come to services, and I put generative AI in the services camp much more than hardware, is that Apple is not best-in class at services at all. As a package, Apple services can be beneficial, especially if you’re part of the ecosystem - but even tho I pay Apple $38 a month for Apple One Premier, I’m still paying separately for Spotify, Dropbox, OneDrive (part of Office 365 but still), and Netflix (and a bunch of other video services) and I don’t think I could reasonably drop any of those services in-place of just using iCloud/Apple TV/Apple Music, etc. My parents can (except for Netflix/prime video), and Apple services are definitely “good enough” for a lot of people in the ecosystem, but none are best-in-class.

Unclear if they’d be able to be “good enough” to displace other generative AI services here or not, but to your point, Apple Maps still hasn’t gotten over its bad launch. And Siri on the phone is still dog shit. Siri is so bad that I won’t even use it on platforms where it is objectively good, like Apple TV, unless I specifically remember to.

I presume they have an SE model in mind for their second iteration. Maybe there's a mothballed project we don't know about, or maybe someone at Apple is tired of rebranding product lines and insisted on making space for both.

Or maybe someone thinks they're managing expectations on price by putting Pro in the name, since it's on par with their other Pro products.

The MacBook Pro was released in January of 2006, followed by the MacBook in May of 2006 (if Wikipedia is to be believed, but it matches my memory).

The name Apple Vision was taken.

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/AppleVision_Display

Patents, patents, patents. Arm yourself to the teeth to defend yourself from the trillion dollar companies.

Spend a few thousand dollars to get provisionals. Then if your idea works and grows, file the full patents.

Don't let the giants steal your blood, sweat, and tears finding the gradients.

Y’all just say the quiet part out loud now?

I find it interesting 'analysts' are looking at Apple's product rather than user sentiment.

If you are only looking at objective metrics, Apple is always going to perform at B and C levels.

If you are looking at fanaticism, they are A++.

I'll grant you Siri, of course, but why Apple Maps? From my use, it should be held as an example of how Apple can convert a bad launch into a good product.