People need to stop falling for the hype-bullshit-industrial complex. Manufactured attention is the only reason a publisher would give positive attention to a device that replicates the functionality of a bluetooth earbud at a cost of $700 plus $25 a month.
I didn't get the feeling that anyone was falling for Humane's modest hype. The coverage has generally been pretty skeptical.
No one seemed to believe that Humane made a quantum leap over Alexa & Siri, which both suck.
EDITING since downvoters who didn't read the article may not know that "*(Investors in Humane include TIME co-chairs and owners Marc and Lynne Benioff)", hence, this hype was pretty fake
Time magazine owners are investors in the device.
It points out the curiosity that investors in Humane are influential in Time's decision of what to call a Best Invention of 2023.
To be clear: I think Time's awarding of this honor has already aged like a fine dog turd in summer sun. The reason it was submitted was because Gruber does a better job at snark than I do.
I would never get a (v1) Humane pin but, all things considered, is a somewhat decent product that had to go through it's mandatory share of R&D, product design, manufacturing, etc...
One thing is to provide a review like "you know these are the current limitations of the thing, etc..." another one is to just bash it like a spoiled child. Marques has spoken much more favorably of much worse performing products.
Anyway if you want the moralestapia's review of Humane, I think it opened up a new category of products and it's pretty decent for a first release. It doesn't give me any benefit over a regular smartphone right now, but I can definitely see hundreds of millions of these devices being worn by people (and dogs and whatnot) in the next decade (maybe not from Humane, who knows). I also really like the idea of "Ambient Computing", they did not create it but they embraced it, and that is quite nice.
Good lord, so many people I'd have to avoid being around. I really hate this future we're building.
Humane shipped dog shit and got dog shit reviews. Big deal.
Sympathy for them is profoundly misplaced: they tried to dump a bag on the public, and you're getting mad at the people pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.
The current limitations seem to be that it doesn’t work?
He did say that the product had potential, if it achieved its own vision. But also reviewers fairly review the product at hand, not what the product could evolve to be.
Definitely not a price people are looking to pay for something that might be useful someday
But for $700 up front, and $24/month, you think Humane "did not deserve" a bad review? For $700 and a subscription, one does not get to be "aspirational", that shit better work. Apple released a device 17 years ago for very similar pricing, the world thought it would flop, and that device actually worked as advertised.
> the world thought it would flop
My personal bubble was absolutely raving about the iPhone. (Although I personally was heavily flirting with the Palm Pre at the time)
But a quick flip to another Wikipedia page says it received mostly positive reviews, so maybe my bubble needs recalibrating. :-)
By "that", do you mean, "an honest assessment of the product that is being sold for $700 + $24/month"?
It's great that it opened up a new category of products, but you're not purchasing the category of products, you're purchasing a specific product. If that specific product does not succeed, then you don't give it an attaboy because it's a cool idea.