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I finally received therabbit r1(the company insist on this lowercase styling ) I ’ve been writing aboutsince its debut at CES in January . And I was able to secernate within about 30 seconds of wrench it on that it was embark a span months too soon — but aboveboard … that ’s fine ? This AI gadget is uncanny , comparatively cheap , and obviously an experiment . To me , that ’s something we should be rallying behind , not dip on .
The literal issues with the r1 are obvious : it does n’t have enough app integrations , and it “ could just be an app . ”
As to the first job , well , it ’s completely true at present . There are only four things to connect to : Uber , DoorDash , Spotify , and Midjourney . leave aside the clear too - small phone number , these are n’t useful for me . I do n’t take many cars ( and I often employ Lyft ) ; I do n’t order much food ( DoorDash is a bad company ) ; I do n’t employ Midjourney ( and if I did , I would n’t use a voice interface ) ; and I do n’t practice Spotify ( Winamp and Plex , if you may believe it ) . plain your mileage might vary , but four is n’t a draw .
As to whether it could just be an app , and for people hung up on the theme that it runs on Android or uses some established genus Apis — maybe you miss the whole pitch , which is that we already have mode too many apps and the point is to unload a passel of plebeian job and services to a simpler , less distraction - inducing gimmick .
Clearly I ’m not the target consultation for this thing . But I ’m still the guy holding one and writing for a big tech publishing , so let ’s take this seriously .
The dim-witted truth is I like the idea of the rabbit r1 , and I ’m OK with waiting until that idea has some clock time to mature . hare is trying to build up interlingual rendition 1.0 ( though it ’s more like 0.1 at this point ) of the all - purpose AI helper that Google , Apple , and Amazon have beenfakingfor the last decade . Siri , Google Assistant , Alexa … they ’re all just born words command lines for a collection of APIs . None of them really fuck what to do , so they ’re justbacking one of the immobile horsesand hoping to capture up at some point . coney has said that their intention was to move tight and ship something while the 900 - lb gorilla of the diligence are thresh .
The trouble come in fall apart a company ’s dream from the product . Certainly rabbit ’s machine is nowhere near the state that CEO Jesse Lyu render off in various demonstration and videos . We have perfectly good account for that , but it does n’t modify the fact that the r1 is shipping in a entirely barebones country .
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I ca n’t in safe sense of right and wrong advise anyone to buy one now . I entail , for me , it does almost nothing . But that has n’t stop 100,000 people from purchase one , and I do n’t think they ’ve been deceived in any means . cony has been pretty capable about the fact that it ’s going to commercialise with a minimal viable production as tight as possible ( which , despite delays , has still been somewhat fast ) , and that it will add up the feature it has lecture about by and by .
In the meantime , you have a few pop apps to habituate and a competent conversational AI ( one you ’d unremarkably have to pay for ) that can expect thing up for you or discover stuff in pictures . There are , like , three options .
So it work — for a limited definition of “ works . ” Is that worth $ 200 to you ? What if coney added video call via WhatsApp ? Will it will be deserving that $ 200 when it adds Lyft , Tidal , audio transcription , Airbnb , navigation , and Snake ? What about next class , when you’re able to train it on whatever app you want ? ( Assuming the caller ’s vaunted Large Action Model works . ) I ’m not being facetious ; it really is just a question of what you think is deserving paying for .
$ 200 is n’t nothing , but when it comes to consumer electronics — specially in these days of $ 1,000 + iPhones — it ’s not incisively a big tag item , either . People pay $ 200 for random memory , for a overbold measure mag tape , and for overnice mechanical keyboards every day . If you say me I could get an Feker 75 Aluminum for $ 200 decently now , I ’d ordain two and never rue it ! ( If you have one , e-mail me ! ) Meanwhile you ’ll never catch me paying full price for a MacBook Pro . Again , it ’s up to each of us to make up one’s mind . ( Though you might waitress for a protection audited account too , considering they ’ll have authorized session for a heap of your invoice . )
Personally , I think it ’s a fun peep at a potential futurity . My phone is in my purse but the r1 is in my sack , and I can pull it out on a walk and ask “ what variety of hawks and eagles live around here ? ” rather than open up the Sibley app and filtering by region . Then I can say , “ add prairie falcon to the tilt of birds I ’ve see in Simplenote . ” Then I can say “ call a car to the parking lot of Golden Gardens to take me home , and apply the cheap choice , ” and that happens . Then I involve it to record and key out the song playing by someone ’s balefire . ( Just expect ? In Seattle it is n’t done . ) And so on .
Sure , I could do all that on my phone , but I get kind of tired of holding that matter and swapping between apps and getting telling for stuff that is n’t actually of import flop now .
I like the idea of a more focused equipment . I like that it ’s smallish and safety orangeness and it has a really sorry tv camera with a complicated swivel mechanics for basically no reason ( they make duple - finish television camera wad for this exact understanding ) .
company used to make all sort of uncanny stuff . Remember Google’sweird Nexus Q music thing ? Rememberhow wild smartphones used to be , with unequaled keyboards , trackball , cool material , andweirdo rocket launcher ? Tech is so wearisome now . People do everything on the same equipment , and everyone ’s equipment is almost exactly the same as everyone else ’s .
“ What song is this ? ” Out come the phone , unlock , swipe swipe spigot tap .
“ We should see if we can find a cabin out that way for Memorial Day weekend ? ” Phone , swipe swipe case eccentric roll scroll .
“ Who were the two guys in the Postal Service again ? ” earpiece , rap type scroll strike .
Every twenty-four hour period , every thing , same fistful of actions . It ’s useful , but it ’s boring . And it ’s been the same for years ! Phones are where laptop were in 2007 , and smartphones came along to let us experience there ’s another way to do it . Rabbit is hoping to do the same affair to a lesser extent with the r1 .
I care that the r1 exists and that it is simultaneously both amazingly futuristic and hilariously limited . Tech should be fun and weird sometimes . Efficiency and reliability are overrated . Plus , have me tell you , the homebrew and hack community are go bad to go to town on this thing . I ca n’t wait til I ’m play Tempest on it or , honestly , scrolling down a societal medium app or reader . Why not ? engineering science is what we make of it . The r1 is leaning into that , and I for one think that ’s coolheaded .
