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Comment by dagmx | Hacker News Reader

Here’s an Unbox Therapy video

https://youtu.be/W2pYTRdX5LA?si=giLseweTP0zWf-M-

I’m sure more stuff will drop throughout the day but in case folks wanted to see a hands on.

Right now I don’t see it doing anything I can’t do from my phone already.

I’m very unclear on why these (rabbit and humane) aren’t just apps. I just don’t see people carrying these in addition to their phones and dealing with the split interaction ecosystem.

I also don’t understand why neither made their products into a watch form factor. That at least solves the majority of their issue of “having it on you in a convenient way”

Also as an aside, while I think the teenage engineering design is gorgeous, I’m disappointed that the packaging is so plastic heavy. A plastic cartridge like case wrapped in plastic. Neither of which will be used again.

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> I’m very unclear on why these (rabbit and humane) aren’t just apps.

That's the one thing that seemed really clear to me. People's phones are too locked down so these can't be apps, you'd either hit Apple restrictions right away, or would inevitably hit them as you developed further. (The first time you, for example, wanted to always listen transparently for a wake word the way an iPhone or HomePod does for Siri, and Apple blocked you for it. Or the first time you wanted to show your UI while the screen is locked, Apple is allowed do do this for Maps, but you definitely aren't allowed to in your own app).

At this point, if you want to do anything big on mobile, you have to also re-invent (or copy a pre-OEM android) smartphone, just for the chance to try it out. Just like Rabbit does here.

Perhaps you’re talking about some abstract point in the future, but both the devices as they are today don’t use wake words.

They’re all push to talk. They could literally be an app that you launch from the shortcut button and provide the same functionality.

> I’m very unclear on why these (rabbit and humane) aren’t just apps.

Try to get a VC to give you $100M for an app

Yes, this is the reason why the products exist. The harder question is why people are hyping them up. My guess is a combination of gadget lust and a general unease about how central smartphones have become in our lives.

The short answer is that they are paid to hype it. They launched at CES (paid) with a splashy video (paid). They got lots of media coverage (paid and paid in kind by bringing in ad revenue). They were talked-up on X by all the VCs (paid in kind by hyping the segment they invest in) and the AI influencers (paid by ads).

> Right now I don’t see it doing anything I can’t do from my phone already.

To start, I think these things are toys and think they are an opportunity to explore one potential use of the tech, probably not the right one.

But… I do understand the vision of having a device that intentionally adds friction to my interaction with digital tools, in theory, with minimal compromise in capability.

> I’m very unclear on why these (rabbit and humane) aren’t just apps

the real end game for AI devices is an always on microphone which is impossible on iOS.

Both products actively position themselves as push to talk to avoid wake words and maintain privacy.

The real tragedy of this era of technology is that even if an important new invention did work as well as imagined in sci fi, it would be so compromised by surveillance capitalism and patterns of enshittification that no one paying attention would want to come to rely on it.

As Ted Chiang put it, most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism.

That's a good point. I don't worry about AI turning into any kind of movie supervillain.

If I wanted a second phone with an always on microphone why would I buy a weird looking orange potato instead of just buying a phone that supported it?

Don't know why you got downvoted, 100% correct.

"Activate to launch a command" is not very compelling, the real magic comes from some combination of:

- is aware of the environment

- can talk to like a person

- can act on the world

Because it doesn’t relate at all to either device. Both are push to activate by design.

It's what they're reaching for though. It's the platonic ideal of the product.

Before cost, capability, privacy, and expectations on how to "use" a "tool" get in the way.

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