Thread

Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac

353 points · 223 comments · alwillis

VCFundedGenYer · 1790017285 · focus · HN ↗
I want the disk space taken from the models back.
I will never touch this garbage and would rather use the disk space I purchased to be used for my purposes, not the industry's pointless fad bubble endeavors.
1. mort96 · 1790018375 · focus · HN ↗
  Absolutely 100%. Now I'm very biased against this "AI" stuff in general, but even fans of "AI" can't want this, right? I mean I know some people who are heavy "AI" users and they all either have a setup with Cursor/Codex/Zed/VSCode/whatever or their preferred local model, they'd never ever want to use "whatever Apple happens to ship with the OS". Same with the model Google bundled into their browser, growing Chrome from roughly 200MB to over 4GB. Who's the target audience here?
  It's investors isn't it.
  1. jm4 · 1790019287 · focus · HN ↗
    I actually like AI tools, but I don’t use Apple Intelligence. It’s literally the worst in class. It feels very late 90’s Microsoft. They are shoving it on us when we don’t want it and it’s worse than everything else out there. It’s the Windows Media Player of the AI industry.
    alwillis · 1790025314 · focus · HN ↗
    > It’s literally the worst in class. It feels very late 90’s Microsoft.
    1. I was around in the 90’s; nothing today is that bad.
    2. Siri AI is dramatically better than old-school Siri. You don’t realize how useful personal context is until you have it.
    Something like “When was the last time I went to that pizza place downtown?”—it just works.
    When you call the airline about your flight, your flight info automatically shows up.
    mort96 · 1790026635 · focus · HN ↗
    Yet something like "Call <name of a person>" will still immediately call someone with a completely different name without even letting me cancel, right?
    Siri is completely useless.
    zeagle · 1790040965 · focus · HN ↗
    Hah. Reminds me of carplay: "text (name)" "what would you like to know about (name)?" "f****** text them" dance daily while driving.
    mikestew · 1790043787 · focus · HN ↗
    Just today: “give me directions to the ferry terminal”. I’m on an island with one terminal, I shouldn’t have to be specific.
    “Here’s a list of three ferry terminals that are on different islands, none of which are the island you’re on.”
    “Give directions to the Orcas Island ferry terminal.”
    “Here’s directions to the Port of Orcas Island, which is on the side of the island opposite the ferry terminal.”
    If I weren’t driving a camper van on narrow roads, I would have taken her up on the “other island” option. “How do you propose we get there, Siri? Maybe start by driving to the g-ddamned ferry terminal?!”
    Bud · 1790050688 · focus · HN ↗
    You might want to update your information a bit.
    <a href="https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri" rel="nofollow">https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri
    mort96 · 1790091191 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh, nice, they added a confirmation screen before you call! I'm not sure when they're planning to roll that feature out to Europe but once they do, maybe Siri will be occasionally slightly useful when I need to call someone while my hands are dirty or while I'm driving.
    jm4 · 1790031829 · focus · HN ↗
    I was around in the 90's too, which is why I can confidently say it is that bad. What Apple is doing with AI today is exactly the same formula as some of the worst stuff Microsoft put out back then. I'm not talking about the big things. More like the bundled apps where they see someone else getting traction with something and then they go and bundle their own K-Mart version of it that no one asked for.
    Bud · 1790038615 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    rightnutwingjob · 1790033793 · focus · HN ↗
    > Something like “When was the last time I went to that pizza place downtown?”—it just works.
    An absolute must have feature!
    Just kidding. Couldn’t give a fuck about that.
    lxgr · 1790087177 · focus · HN ↗
    > Siri AI is dramatically better than old-school Siri. [...] it just works.
    Yeah, after 30 seconds, assuming it doesn't fail outright. The only thing I use Siri for is to set timers on my watch when cooking. This used to take 2-3 seconds at most and even worked completely offline on the watch itself. That functionality is now effectively broken for me.

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