alt Hacker NewsThis looks like a genuinely useful application of LLMs.
I wish more companies focused on how they can help humans instead of replacing us or squeezing us as hard as possible in the name of productivity.
Replies
This is what Apple does best.
They treat new industry advancements as technology, not products itself.
AI will be a feature to improve the customer experience, not the product itself.
I agree. There seems to be a lot of potential in this space (from my outsider view). I really hope that this issue from an earlier article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48178378) doesn't become common enough to make useful functionality like this a danger. Seems unlikely in the short term but as use cases grow, so might the bad actors.
Its with their servers right? Do they trust a iPhone with their life? Or they are trusting their data center?
"looks like" there are a lot of automated accessibility systems that fall woefully short in practical use
this sort of thing really needs input from someone that uses it before we can judge it
Aren't the LLM-based features of this announcement catch-up features? Describing the contents of the screen is something Gemini has been doing on Pixel phones for a while. It's a fairly obvious use case for a multimodal AI.
My one hope is that this eventually becomes widespread enough to stop alt text scolds.
Let's be honest, compare the amount of money a corporation can make helping visually impaired people to the amount of money they can make replacing software developers and financial analysts.
Don't get me wrong, Apple using these technologies to help humans who are in need of help is laudable. But let's not pretend we don't know why most corporations don't look into this kind of thing. I think if we're being honest, we all very much know why they leave this sort of thing to the always nebulous "others".
I think we should reserve judgment until this lands in the hands of the people it helps.
My experience is limited to my elderly parents who have trouble seeing. With the text size Apple allows them to set it to, their phones are unreadable. Text runs off the screen in every app, 1st and 3rd party.
In their bill example, the user is told to confirm with the provider. Why not offer to call the number on the bill? Instead of telling them to use text detection, do it for them? Presumably Apple Intelligence would already have that capability. I’m afraid this will be a gimmick at best.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the grip is good to see. Hopefully they don’t charge the apple tax on it.