Hacker News Reader

> It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products.

Probably. I think we've hit a plateau with user interfaces for most connected gear. Sticking a physical scroll button on what is essentially a phone buys me nothing but annoyance. Phones just kind of do what we want and have an acceptable enough interface that the alternatives get in our way.

The Humane Pin added the laser display but ... nobody wants it? This is starting to feel like sticking a spoiler on a phone and pretending it adds value. Maybe VCs are impressed by this stuff, I don't know.

If there were a magic version of this it would have the model and processing onboard. That's obviously extremely cost prohibitive right now, but that's what it's going to take to create a real AI-powered assistant:

* I need it to work without network latency.

* I need multiple forms of input/output depending on the context.

* I don't need Teenage Engineering's usual form-over-function design. I need the form to be out of my way most of the time.

It's great that people are experimenting in this space. It's less great that people are getting multiple millions in funding and selling a phone and web service as an "AI device." This will hurt future development.

imo that laser display is awesome and I want one, but it's hobbled by the software. I'd gladly pay $700 if it was open and wasn't locked to their ecosystem.

Even considering it does not appear to work well in bright settings, and can't map the laser beam to uneven surfaces? Conceptually, the idea could be interesting, but the implementation shown appears that it would not work well in most real life settings.

Like the first gen Apple watch, or a convertible car. it doesn't work in a lot of scenarios, but for the ones where it does, it absolutely shines. A generation or three later, it'd be better, for sure, but early adopters have to give up some things to be that early. I just don't know why they had to force it to be independent of your smartphone this early in its lifecycle. It's an accessory, like a smartwatch, and sure, a later generation could operate independently, just like there's an LTE Apple watch, but that's not where they are yet.

I’m not sure it’s even at that stage yet. It’s more like very early proof of concept than limited demand consumer ready product.

Fair. I don't have one so I'm basing my opinion off of youtube videos and not actual experience with one.

Survivor bias is so strong here, though. None of us can predict the future, and for every iPhone there's a swarm of largely forgotten devices like the Newton, WebTV, or Nokia M510.

What brand new/emerging technologies did the 1st gen Apple watch use?

Apple mostly waits until a technology is proven, if they try something new they usually bury it.

See the failure of "AirPower". Or something like "vision pro" mostly all been done before apart from the weird ass screen that shows people's eyes for some reason that everyone hates and will definitely not appear in v2.

Apple is a terrible example of innovation for the most part.

As I've seen it demoed I'd get one as like a raspberry pi or microcontroller peripheral. But $700?

For hardware that doesn't require me to break out my TS80P soldering iron and no breadboarding (that is half the fun though, although it becomes a different kind of project)? I mean I could, but then I've got to make a whole harness for the thing and and and. It's worth it to me to not have to do all that. But you're right, $700 is a lot.

> Sticking a physical scroll button on what is essentially a phone buys me nothing but annoyance.

Strange thing is, it's actually a touchscreen. But the only thing that they let you use it for is the input keyboard. Saw this in a review on YouTube, I don't have one

Because the implementation of the laser display sucks (imo) bc we need better technologies for it. So more waiting.

Same thing for ultra wide fov ar glasses, I'd kill for those.

> It's great that people are experimenting in this space. It's less great that people are getting multiple millions in funding and selling a phone and web service as an "AI device."

This is the best two-sentence summary I've seen so far. People tend to forget just how many wacky flip phones and PDA-type devices had to come and go before the touchscreen smartphone as we know it came into being. Which is what these new AI gadgets remind me of.

However, the difference I see now versus 20 years ago is that companies today are just trying to get the most cash and deliver the cheapest product (and pocket the difference), rather than stick with their product and reinvest into R&D.

"Giving order to one's assistant" is a class of interaction that some people desperately want, and I expect we'll see these kind of devices being made until it works, even if it's in two decades from now.

Fundamentally it's the model of the boss giving orders to its secretary, and people dream of it as some pinnacle of evolution (perhaps it is, I don't have a paid secretary to assess the point). That's actually pretty close to the concierge services offered by phone for instance, and some people with enough money seem to enjoy it, so why not (try to replicate it, even if it miserably fails for a while) ?

Yes it’s a very hierarchical way of thinking. I’d much rather imagine a world with more collaboration between peers than every person having a servant, but it seems those that run tech companies prefer the latter.

Totally agree. I also think that there might be a fundamental divide with people in our line of work (programming), as by definition we've decided to learn how machines talk and think, to address them in their language and understand what they're telling us.

Someone choosing this career path expecting to throw around vague orders and have them resolved exactly as they expected has probably already quit the first week on the job.

And I thought the conclusion was going to be nearly the exact opposite result.

That our constant exposure to machines, and machine patterns has ingrained an expected compliance and obedience of order following, and not needing to argue with the computer about the "worth" of the calculations or whether they "need" to be done.

You ask a machine to calculate, it calculates. Doesn't mean it calculates correctly, yet it "usually" doesn't talk balk (not until LLMs at least).

Well ostensibly the Rabbit is produced by software people. I’m generally skeptical of claims “our people think differently.” There’s loads of people in the world that understand the importance of meeting people where they’re at. An obvious example is nurses and therapists, but there must be loads of professions like that. Just not CEO, since it seems many people in that position want to give orders.

I think people can see the other side (or have a foot in both) and make the life easier for other people. I mean, your point is valid for any company building tools to democratize an otherwise complex task (e.g. Squarespace like online site makers, any camera with an auto mode, automatic transmission cars etc.)

I still think we're seeing different work patterns in our fields, RMS getting his mail printed is the exception more than the rule, where no one would bat an eye at HSBC's CEO never opening a computer in his daily work (I don't know him, just a random example)

Because we need advances in material sciences, optics etc to build anything new.

Devices will stay the same until we invent new technologies.

We've certainly progressed semiconductors a lot, but it's still just the same old process for the most part. I think it's areas other than semiconductors that will drive innovation, new optics/displays (foldable, holographic, wide fov ar on a contact), solid state batteries, etc.

Would sure be nice to have properly 3d semiconductors tho. As many transistors as there are across x and y, there should be across z too.

> It feels like we need to wait for the underlying technology to advance before we can get to the next set of interesting products.

I think it shows a lack of creativity to say this, because existing technologies can definitely be used in novel ways to create value. Perhaps we just love to imagine new technologies as engineers.

But for example, the iPhone was nothing "new" in terms of hard tech but it definitely changed the world.

Even if that is the case, it is more of a commentary on how companies have overall failed to come up with anything creative for quite a few years. All of the products that are the "next big thing" currently are hampered by the current state of technologies that they use.

The iPhone is a great example of technology catching up to make a product viable. Between phone networks, display technology (especially touchscreens), SoC efficiency, etc. the iPhone only became possible when these could integrate together in a practical package along with the vision to bring it to market.

I feel similarly hopeful actually!

I think people do seem generally annoyed by the scroll wheel, but I think that's just a bad implementation in this case. I don't think that means that all physical controls (meaning: not a touch screen) are just pointless gimmicks. It's a bit myopic to think we've hit some perfect un-challengable UI paradigm with flickable scrolling and sheets of software buttons and fields that you tap.

There was an attempt with folding phones. Is that taking off beyond the "I have too much money" crowd?

what are you implying here? that folding phones are simply a money thing, and have no actual value?

I'm not sure if I'd get behind that take, but folding screen phones are horribly impractical if you are even a little hard on your phone. The screens and hinges are fragile, I've yet to see one that feels like it'd last more than a year at least for me.

I actually have a first gen Surface Duo and it's held up, though its been relegated to the second device role since it stopped getting updates. Anything with an actual folding display has seemed weak IMO, I'd be afraid of breaking it or finding weird distortions in the screen after a bit of use.

I used to own a Fold 4 and it's a wonderful device, I really loved it (mostly the multitasking, stylus support, small outer screen for one-handed use). Unfortunately, the design is truly fragile and I sold mine after I got it back from the repair shop for the second time (and got a boring iPhone). I truly hope newer generations will be better and I can purchase one that will last at least 3-4 years.

From second hand experience (I’ve never owned one but my cousin loves foldables), they’re probably more reliable than an unadorned iphone. Folding means the screen isn’t fully exposed.

The major advantage of the iPhone is that its ecosystem of cases means you can get some pretty high quality cases that can make it actually protected.

I really like my Surface Duo for exactly that reason, folding it hides the screens. The device dimensions definitely aren't for everyone, but having the option for a larger device and the usability of two screens really is pretty handy.

The Duo has its own faults though, the body around the charging port is particularly fragile due to how thin they made the device.

Your intuition about screen fragility is right. I recently switched from a Samsung Flip 4 to a non-folding Pixel 8. While I liked the idea of it, in practice it was pretty chunky (twice the thickness of a normal phone when folded, too tall for my pockets when unfolded), and I damaged the screen twice in a year via normal use.

The Samsung Z Flip is about the same price as it's equivalent S24, they're not necessarily more expensive anymore.

I know 3 people who switched to folding Android phones from iPhones and love them, anecdotally all were women.

It makes sense, women have to deal with painfully small pockets so these phones can be very useful.

I don't think Sony mirrorless ever ran Android, they always ran proprietary Linux distro(MontaVista or Linaro or one of those) and for brief moment they bolted on Android 2.2 userland on it as an experiment.

To be frank, it’s sort of hard to see many devices that could be more useful than the modern “phone,” which btw the phone part is almost superfluous at present. Now the an always connected general purpose compute device with a nearly complete environmental sensor array, extraordinarily high resolution screen, integrated multilens camera array, capable of doing AR with LIDAR, etc etc. It’s difficult to imagine a more capable device. These “new” devices are reductionist and trying to tackle the non-problem of carrying these wonderful tricorders of 2024. Converging devices has been a theme for the last 20 years, and now it’s almost entirely been achieved. There may very well not be another class of devices forthcoming if you factor in the connected wearables with bio monitoring that are essentially extensions of the “phone.”

It’s the Leatherman vs a toolbox. The advantages of phones is their convenience. If you seldom use any of the extra parts, then it does a great job. More often and you’d better go with a proper device. And that includes the camera.

I would note that people use their camera constantly on the phone. I would posit people only use a dedicated camera in very specific situations where a superior lens or sensor is required, such as nature photography or some special event. I’ll wager $20 almost every photo taken by humanity YTD was on a “phone.”

There was a sci-fi story written in 1960s which described pretty much what smartphones ended up being:

> The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_the_Pussyfoot)

Interestingly, the author came up with the idea after he got acquainted with the details of time-sharing mainframes common of his time. Consequently, the devices themselves are actually mostly hollow, just processing input and output, and all actual smarts are done on central servers elsewhere - which becomes a major plot point eventually.

It even got the social aspects of it - i.e. it being a standard device that people carry around them everywhere, it's used for most day-to-day communication etc. Just about the only thing about it that feels off from a modern perspective is their size - they are large enough to require carrying them on the belt (like 90s cellphones) rather than in the pocket.

Now, one thing that is still missing compared to the model is the "pocket bar" part (which in the novel also includes recreational drugs). Now that would actually justify a new device like Rabbit. ~

I didn't say anything about it being more useful than a phone, but the next big thing would have to solve problem(s) that a phone (and other existing devices) cannot solve to the same degree.