The issue is getting developers to create apps for a new OS nobody uses (yet). And nobody will use it if they can't have their banking app and uber on it
This becomes even tougher if they go the Apple route and don't allow other phone manufacturers to use their OS. Alternatively, if they go down the Windows Phone route, we saw how that played out considering that Google _pays_ manufacturers to use Android
Making OS is very hard, but getting necessary adoption is likely even harder
On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with a high quality phone OS that has only stock apps out of the box and high quality hardware, good camera, good battery life, reasonable camera app, drastically more curated app store for professional apps, I'd be okay with such a competitor, no more ad spam apps.
I don't think I've seen a phone take over enterprise the way that the Blackberry once dominated, now its either iPhone or Android. You could argue that your executives are safer on a more locked down system. You'd 100% want to get everyone who makes an MFA app or service on your device on the other hand.
It's a bit of a different world today then when BlackBerry dominated.
RIM essentially invented MDM which is what allowed it to take off in the enterprise, via BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Android and iOS didn't fully unseat them in the enterprise until third party MDMs were up to par and lock down the consumer devices just as effectively.
So whatever new phone/OS that wants to take a stab at the enterprise, out of the gate, must support MDM profiles from all the major ones at least (InTune, ManageEngine, MaaS360, etc.). Then, as you said, all the MFA apps, at least should have Slack/Teams, office apps, etc.
Not that it can't be done, but the cost of entry is much higher today if anyone wants to overcome the switching costs.
The cost of entry is higher, but everyone has more money though, in this analogy. AI can vibe code all that out if someone seriously wanted to compete.
Not only that, people have seriously memory holed the state the original iPhone launched in.
No App Store, only web apps, not even 3G, only Yahoo push mail, and tied to AT&T - who were loathed, because in many places they just sucked. And it succeeded anyway.
It was when Exchange push support came in the first major OS upgrade that corporate adoption exploded.
I would be surprised if any AI forward OS is based around applications developed by other people. I imagine the OS will create the software you need. Thing's like banking apps are more difficult, but I imagine OpenAI could sort that out behind the scenes.
The idea of managing a consumer app API for which every client is auto-vibecoded to the user's preference sounds...fun.
User: Hello Uber support? Yes, the app shows my driver is in the ocean off the west coast of Africa? And his ETA is -2147483648 minutes?
Uber: Your app, your problem.
User: Hello phonebrain, can you fix my Uber app?
Phonebrain: You're absolutely right, I must have misunderstood the API docs. Squiggling... ... Shuffling ...
Phonebrain: Error, you've hit your usage limit. Please wait 12 hours, or switch to pay-as-you-go app development mode. I cannot estimate how much it will cost to fix your Uber app.
And if it came to that, and that's how this OS worked, we'd see open APIs disappear real quick from all the popular services because of the support nightmare, and, services like Uber and others are going to want to maintain exclusivity with their first party app the moment vibe coding becomes that viable. APIs will get locked down, and we'll all be worse off for it.
If an "AI Phone" looks to be an existential threat to third party app devs and services, except everyone to do everything they can kill said AI Phone to protect their own products.
Tech companies already have a history of shutting down APIs as soon as someone actually uses the API to make something that users like better than the official applications. They don't need AI-written clients as an excuse.
Honestly this might be less of a problem these days. If the model is that you build a good dev API and everyone points their agent at the software they need, then you don’t need the huge corporate investment in a full ecosystem.
To be clear I don’t think we are fully ready for this to work. But directionally the trend looks significant.
That's unfortunately a rosy view of it. It might be easier to take source from one platform to another but that was never the issue; the issue is keeping it up to date with releases, testing it as often as other platforms, and handling user support tickets. The chicken and egg situation still applies here and companies aren't going to spend all the time and money on a new platform if users aren't asking for it.
Then it comes down to cost of compute. Are companies going to add a multiplier on their compute costs to reach a platform with no users? It's still the same problem.
Except that emulation/VM and the web makes it viable. What do you want to do with the thing? Banking and Uber are two specific, mass-market adoption criteria, but there's a reason Windows is still around and it's not because of those two things. The issue is business and money and who's paying for things in the age of AI? I'll use a new OS for fun, for free, in my spare time, but if I have to pay money instead of time, then I'm going to have to think about it. Either way though, the AI lab's gonna get my money in order to do stuff with it.
From the outside looking in, I don't think Meta has a clear vision. I think it's a stretch to say that this one announcement makes it clear. There are AI announcements from Meta every month, recent ones more focused on coding (Muse Spark/Muse Code)
Their ads team wants AI to improve their targeting and ad creation. Some want to have frontier AI including coding. Others might want personal AI agent. Then there's the flirting with renting their compute
And I'm not even taking shots at them. I think Google is exactly the same. I think OpenAI is largely the same (though lately more following Anthropic footsteps and focusing on productivity). And I think the whole field is so new and allows change in so many places - that it's sort of normal or fine to throw things at the wall and see what sticks.
But nothing as of now says to me that Meta has a clear strategy around llms
I would say they should put ALL their focus on Next Generation content generation… I honestly think in the ~10 years we’re going to see cinema completely flip from high budget blockbusters to way cheaper, personalised “Choose Your Own Adventure” content but where the story changes/rewrites itself in realtime based on constant user feedback (thumbs up from popups mid movie, facial expressions etc).
Meta could be the next generation’s Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal etc
I read this take on hacker news all the time, but what indication do you have that this would be popular ?
All the streaming giants had ample budget and engineering talent to make interactive fiction happen, but didn’t, presumably because they know a) not everybody is creative that way and b) a big part of culture is that you can discuss it with others, which doesn’t work for personalised works.
If you have your kids you’ll know that the shared culture we used to have is no more. Kids these days don’t turn on the tv when they get home from school but instead go on their highly personalised feeds… so for any shared culture, we’re now back to memes (in the original sense of the word, not internet memes).
You can’t look at the big giants with their budgets and think “If they can’t do it, nobody will”. The bigger you are, the slower you’ll move. This is exactly why FAANGS buy innovation rather than build it all themselves.
I’m 100% positive we’ll see exactly what I described in the coming years and it will be from an unknown startup with two founders, no budget, and just a coffee machine to keep them going
I think they're largely making fun of extremes, whether left, right or Kanye West, Disney/China, Scientology etc. (And once in a while apologize when they get it wrong, like Man Bear Pig) Lately the extremes are more extreme and powerful on the right and so more episodes target that
The last season made fun of ICE, Peter Thiel, Trump-gift-based-economy, shitcoins and so on (Labubus, 67, ...)
They also poked fun at themselves that South Park sucks now as it's all about politics, which I don't think they ever really wanted
Agreed. And they have been poking fun at the right for decades. Heck they made a whole movie about how ridiculous the global war on terror was, back in 2004.
There was an interesting video by Ben Felix that makes a case that home ownership doesn't significantly (or at all) increase happiness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G_OSohLC_A
That being said housing has gotten worse for both buying as well as renting. I think there is a case to be made that having a place you feel comfortable/home in (whether rented or owned) affects people's wellbeing disproportionately.
In the end, home ownership is more based around the kind of life you want to live than costs/benefits of the house as an asset. As a Canadian I see that many of my friends would choose to pay a lot more each month on the principle of a mortgage than they would ever save in a registered account.
> home ownership doesn't significantly (or at all) increase happiness
N=1 but for me it didn't. I'm probably repeating myself on this site but 70 years ago a home was a box that kept you out of the weather. Now it's an investment that you have to treat as a going concern. Many industries - contractors, window salesman, landscapers, HGTV, realtors, mortgage brokers, driveway pavers, deck builders, HOAs, etc. - have substantial swaths pushing this neo-feudalist "your home is your castle bro they aren't making more land" narrative so that people are socially pressured into dumping their life savings into a non-fungible asset then spending even more on ridiculous things like building pergolas and updating a 10-year-old bathroom to purportedly improve its value. Everybody's become a property speculator and wants to "get on the ladder".
The upshot is that I spent a lot of time and money on a bunch of stuff I didn't care about for my house because I was concerned with getting my money out of it when I sold. Conversely I chose not to pursue several interesting projects that I liked because they might have been dealbreakers to potential buyers. The whole thing is depressing. It's centered around building/projecting wealth and getting one over on the next guy more than it is on having a place to live. Corporate homeowners have nothing to do with this.
One issue is that if you plan to have an expanding family your home needs to retain its resale value to allow you to sell it and move into a larger home to suit your family needs.
I did the full 100. It's not even 1/4, with the harder ones when one description is significantly longer than others, it's the correct one. Even outside that 2 choices are usually some object - which I think is never the correct answer
I'd also say the toughness should be mixed up a little. The last 30 or so became a slog
Some features don't land in Europe because US companies can't handle the amount of languages. For them it is English and maybe Spanish or Chinese because they don't care how heybmake money.
I think there's a ton of examples where this is true for lower level stuff like open source where you see the internals.
For commerical products it certainly exists too, for example in those cases where you know the product is built by one person or a small group of people who you absolutely know take extraordinary care to get all the details right, and it shows through as a really nice intangible feeling when you're using the product.
That (kind of rare to be honest) 'oh this is just really well done' feeling.
Platforms that are obviously vibe slop are almost entirely ignored by those that value quality.
If your product has that cheap stench of AI I'll never trust it, I'll instantly think the creators are chumps and I'll look for any alternative that doesn't have that stench.
You are right I forgot about that ! I think my point still stands - price per token is not decreasing for frontier capabilities, in fact it's increasing.
This only means the frontier is growing faster than the price is decreasing. It's just the sum of two separate tendencies, and has little predictive value. TBH, I'm ok with this tradeoff - higher capability at slightly higher cost is perfectly fine.
This becomes even tougher if they go the Apple route and don't allow other phone manufacturers to use their OS. Alternatively, if they go down the Windows Phone route, we saw how that played out considering that Google _pays_ manufacturers to use Android
Making OS is very hard, but getting necessary adoption is likely even harder
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