[reidjs]

If anyone else was wondering why this is a physical device

> Why aren’t all these AI gadgets just an app? The answer is actually really simple: phones and tablets don’t allow AI deep system-level access. The iPhone, especially, is a closed platform that Apple wouldn’t allow AI complete access to.

[AlexandrB]

The quote that comes right after is much more scary:

> The “Her”/R2D2 interface for Consumer AI must SEE everything that you do on your screen. It needs to understand your life in order to help it (incl. when not using).

> You CANNOT do this unless you own the Operating System a person uses for their Work and/or Personal lives.

[galaxyLogic]

Good point. The main thing about AI assistant is you must be able to totally trust it. Not sure if that is the case with Apple.

[twiceaday]

That's only one factor. I think the thing that is going to trigger a phase shift when it comes to interacting with LLMs is reducing response latency to conversational ranges by running enough of the models offline. You say something and it starts responding immediately, you interrupt it mid-sentence and it adjusts immediately. That is going to be revolutionary.

[galaxyLogic]

Also a needed feature is speech-understanding, which requires a microphone, which everybody has in their gadget.

[__loam]

Glad the iPhone has basic OS hygiene.

[r00fus]

Because someone read and wanted to replicate "The Diamond Age"?

[dartos]

That’s a non answer.

What would they need “system level access” for? I need to see/hear one actual task that I CAN do on that device that I would not be able to do if it was an app.

[newaccount74]

At the very least it needs to be always on, or have a dedicated button to quickly activate it. Launching an app is cumbersome on iPhone, it's just too slow if you want an always-on assistant.

[galaxyLogic]

It needs to understand what all apps on your device are doing and be able to control them, rather just the one app used for AI.

[xnx]

Don't accessibility apps generally have permissions to see and touch anything on the screen?