Comment by saberience | Hacker News Reader

Comment by saberience | Hacker News Reader

Last Stand? This is rather strong language and overselling the situation, for clicks I guess.

You might re-title the article instead, "The iPhone holds its ground", and it would be a more realistic title. But perhaps garnering less clicks.

I've always thought Ben Thompson is strong on enterprise and b2b topics but super weak on everything consumer related, he simply doesn't seem to understand consumer behavior (he has zero empathy or ability to project his mind into the average person's mind)

E.g. Ben was sure iPhone air would be a massive hit because he himself loved it. (It's struggled as people don't like the smaller battery life).

Ben was sure the Vision Pro would be a huge hit because he himself loved it. (It was a total failure as the average person doesnt want to pay huge amounts for a ridiculous looking dork helmet).

Ben raving about Meta's hand controller which he was sure was going to be the future of consumer electronics (The Neural Band). He was discussing how you could use it while your hand is in your jeans/pants pocket. Not quite thinking about how this would look while you're sat on the subway with someone sat opposite you.

Ben discussing how the future of watching sports is in VR. Not considering how weird it would be to go to a friends house to watch the game and everyone has their own VR headset. Also not considering the fun of watching sports is doing it with other people.

Basically, he has a huge issue with extracting his own liking of techy products to the average consumer who are basically nothing like Ben Thompson.

I get the criticism and all your previous judgments samples are valid. I also agree that title is click-bait BUT:

I know people are desperate for a Siri that works. The convince of just talking to your phone is priceless. If Apple gets this right, this is a huge deal – which it seems they are on the right track.

People are still talking to Siri for basic stuff like timers and alarms because it works, doesn't need an app, works when phone is locked or even away from you. If this works for more complex tasks like texting and general questions Apple will have the upper hand over Meta and Google in this new way of using computers/internet.

Apple also took a very clever approach for Capex and general AI strategy. Everyone knows that the best intelligence will eventually become a commodity and Apple decided to step aside from this expensive experiment. That's worth pointing out too.

Personally I hope you can also type to Siri, which is what I'll use WAY more than voice. I work from home and live alone, but even then I don't want to basically be talking to myself all day. I also live in a major urban city and while random people talking to themselves on the sidewalks certainly isn't unheard of it's not a great look, much less on a subway or cafe.

Yes, they showed the Siri app, typing, reviewing conversations etc.

That would be a huge deal. I’m wondering how current android is being received because as far as the reporting goes it has already delivered LLM voice assistant with personal context. But I haven’t seen any reporting about the consumer market reaction. Android phones already sell better so are thry just miles ahead now?

> E.g. Ben was sure iPhone air would be a massive hit because he himself loved it.

The Air was interesting because everyone I've seen hold it, loves it. But, everyone also loves battery life and the best camera more. The Air is proof of that (similar with the mini lovers).

This. Not sure why it it downvoted. The same with Patrick Moorhead, or in similar stance DED from Apple Insider etc.

Just because you like something, doesn't mean it will succeed. These people will more likely using some sort of industry knowledge to form conclusion which conforms with their bias.

On the flip side, just because you hated something doesn't mean it will fail. There are plenty of Apple haters who will write things that seems to make sense but completely misses the mark every single time.

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