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Comment by throw0101d | Hacker News Reader

This is from a financial market perspective.

From a user perspective it may not be a strength: users / customers may expect certain functionality that works accurately and responsively.

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Beyond Hacker News, I haven't seen anyone actively asking for AI features. People have been complaining about Siri for over a decade but it's not like users are turning against Apple because it isn't using an LLM (yet). Rather, it seems like users are increasingly wary of AI features being shoehorned into products they were already using.

Apple originally planned to power Siri with ChatGPT under the hood. They quickly saw that other models, including open-source ones, were closing the gap fast.

A few months ago, MCP-style tool calling seemed like the clear standard. Now even Anthropic is shifting toward "code-mode" and reusable skills.

For Apple, reliable tool calling is critical because their AI needs to control apps and the whole device. My bet: Apple's AI will be able to create its own Shortcuts on the fly and call them as needed, with OSA Script support on Mac.

One of the reasons I'm heavily biased towards actual Mac native apps is that supporting callback URLs and Shortcuts unlocks so much of what I might ask of an AI tool already. Ironically I often ask AI assistants for line by line steps to create Shortcuts when I need them because actual Shortcut naming and properties can be quite obtuse.

Sadly, much as I love AppleScript, I think Apple giving it any love at this point in time is likely to be a pipe dream. Much more likely they're just going to try to beef up Shortcuts support across the board.

Users aren't really asking for AI features, but they may be asking for features that require AI.

As Google integrates Gemini into their Google Assistant and Google Home products, if it starts to become leaps and bounds better than Siri, customers are going to start wondering why Apple is falling behind. If Apple can't achieve those things without AI and that could cause problems. Customers aren't saying "I want AI features", but they are indirectly asking for them because the features they want require AI to do what they expect.

(I realize Google and Apple have a deal happening to have Gemini integrated into Siri so this isn't the best example, but I think it illustrates the point I'm trying to make)

I'm in that boat - I'm basically fine without AI features. I can think of a couple of hypothetical things that would be nice though - a smart and functional Siri - I never use it at the moment, and maybe a locally hosted LLM that could look through my documents so I can ask where's that spreadsheet with the housing costs etc.

?? Both normies and tech people seem to have been clued in that AI is a shoehorned in feature that companies focus on instead of fixing existing functionality, and that comes with a siphon that exfiltrates all your data for AI companies to train on.

Users weary about shoehorned AI features are probably all on Reddit or Hackernews.

I certainly never heard anyone complain in real life.

The people I know in real life, besides those that work in tech and use it for code assistance or for generating never-reviewed archival transcripts of meetings, mostly just laugh at AI foibles and faults and casually echo doomer-media worries about job replacement as a topic for small talk.

But admittedly, most of those people are established adults who've figured out an effective rhythm to their home and work life and aren't longing for some magic remedy or disruption. They're not necessarily weary, and they were curious at first, but it seems like they're mostly just waiting for either the buzz to burn off or for some "it just works" product to finally emerge.

I imagine there are younger people wowed by the apparent magic of what we have now and excited that they might use it punch up the homework assignments or emails or texts that make them anxious, or that might enjoy toying with it as a novel tool for entertainment and creative idling. Maybe these are some of the people in your "real life"

There are a lot of people out there in "real life", bringing different perspectives and needs.

Nah, LLMs and stable diffusion are being used everywhere by everyone hardcore.

I work at a coworking space. Most of the folks I've worked alongside had active chats in ChatGPT for all sorts of stuff. I've also seen devs use AI copilots, like Copilot and Codex. I feel big old when I drop into fullscreen vim on my Mac.

AI art is also used everywhere. Especially by bars and restaurants. So many AI happy hour/event promo posters now, complete with text (AI art font is kind-of samey for some reason). I've even seen (what look like) AI generated logos on work trucks.

People are getting use out of LLMs, 100%. Yet the anti-AI sentiment is through the roof. Maybe it's like social media where the most vocal opponents are secretly some of its most active users. Idk.

Yes, that sounds about right.

What I meant specifically was that I don't remember anyone complaining about AI features getting in the way or being shoehorned. That particular complaint seems popular only on Reddit or HN.

I've also never heard anyone praise the fact that the first Google result is now half way down page either. Most people don't care enough to complain.

Most of the people I've talked IRL to aren't against AI as a rule, but have grown tired of poorly implemented AI features, especially if they're used as marketing fodder. In my experience, shoehorned AI features have landed themselves in a category similar to that of bundled crapware and useless single-app hotkeys on cheap laptops.

Those of this group who use AI mostly ignore poor rebadges and integrations like MS Copilot and just use ChatGPT and Claude directly. They prefer it to remain intentional and contained within a box that they control the bounds of.

I talk to tons of people in real life who are deeply troubled by the AI-pocalypse. I was at a dinner party just the other day where out of the blue (wasn't me, I swear!), the conversation turned to the horrors of genAI and its negative effect on our society.

No, i don't want AI on my phones OS. I dont want any ai search in phone settings or files or anything like this.

It would be like MS is forcing their copilot currently everywhere, it is totally useless and a nuisance.

Copilot is useful for searching emails and SharePoint. It gives access to GPT-5 with Thinking, making it broadly useful for programming tasks.

It's certainly been useful in my organization.

Gmail search has been excellent for 20 years. Outlook search is still terrible even with copilot. LLM isn’t the killer feature, a search that works is.

For one I don't have Gmail at work.

Copilot can search even in PowerPoints. Being able to search your organisation's documents is kind of a killer feature, provided they make it work reliably.

I can't think of a single reason why you would need an LLM to search through PowerPoint files. We have traditional search technology which would be excellent for that!

> can't think of a single reason why you would need an LLM to search through PowerPoint files

Kati’s Research AI is genuinely great at search. It tries to answer your question, but also directly cites resources. This can help you when you’re not sure where the answer to a question lies, and it winds up being in multiple places.

Unless your query is super simple and of low consequence, you still need to open the files. But LLM-powered search is like the one domain (apart from coding) where these fuckers work.

Google has been doing this well in their office suite for years. Discoverability has been way higher in Gsuite than office.

In other words, something they cannot get from AI?

Disagree. It's a win win. As an example, Windows and Microsoft would benefit users if they focused less on injecting useless Copilot everywhere, and more on maintenance and improvement of the core functionality of the OS while not squandering the human resource of their development teams by forcing them to work on these things; bad opportunity cost.

Not to say Apple isn't also degrading their OS with bad design changes, but "more AI" is not something users are clamoring for.

From what I've seen AI isn't driving purchasing of consumer electronics. It's mainly a talking point for reviewers.

what functionality is this?

I am yet to see ai functionality ppl are dying for.

From a financial market perspective, AAPL is the second highest valuation for a publicly traded company and #1 is in first place because of the AI bubble.

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