Neither an app for iPhone nor for Android. I want the Rabbit r1 as it is (at least for now)
Go ahead, I'm not any fanboy that It's going to justify everything bad that the R1 has —which are many things— and I want and almost demand that it improve over time and that they fix the bugs it currently has.
I want the options you have today to work correctly. That I can order an UBER with the Rabbit r1 without taking out my phone or being able to generate images in Midjourney. I want you to answer what I'm asking and tell me what you see.
And I want all of that to be done well. Make sure it runs smoothly, doesn't cause errors and responds as quickly as possible. That has to be a must and It has nothing to do with the controversy whether or not it should be a smartphone application.
Here I leave my opinion on why I don't think it is a good idea to turn this project into an app.
The obvious: It's a business decision
Rabbit Inc. is a company, and as such it has to look out for its own benefit. I imagine the situation as follows: A round table with Jesse Lyu and a handful of investors, designers and managers of marketing talking about the form factor.
What is form factor? Well, essentially, and if we talk about technology, it refers to the physical specifications, dimensions, and design of a device's components, such as computers, motherboards and other electronic devices.
Jesse has an idea that is create a LAM or Large Action Model that allows you to interact with the data that we give you and teach through what would be a Teaching Mode or Teach Mode how to ask that LAM to act for us.
How to sell the Rabbit r1
And at this point they asked themselves the key question: How do we sell that concept? I imagine that, obviously, the two options that are still being discussed today would arise. On the one hand, create an app to implement it. The other, a new product.
It can be sold as a gadget that frees you from your cell phone, agree on a spectacular design thanks to the geniuses of Teenage Engineering and implement all this through that device to unite the concept to something physical, et voila.
The Rabbit r1 is not an app because it was decided that way for sales reasons and for me, as a business model it is great. You are looking for usable but cheap software. You add the value of a great design and you expand your idea—which in the end is software—thanks to it.
That's perfect for me. You have enough profit margins to continue investigating, developing and improving the main idea that is the LAM and the concept of an artificial intelligence assistant, but with a device you have achieved much more.
The Rabbit r1 is what it is because the company decided so. It's one of the things that catches my attention the most in the reviews I'm seeing. They criticize the design decision and not the design. It's like telling Apple that its iWatch could have been an app and iOs. A nonsense.
About buying an app instead of a Rabbit r1
How many payment applications do you have on your mobile phone? A? Maybe two? Have you bought them at their normal price or have you waited for them to be on sale for some reason? These are perhaps good questions to ask yourself before ordering an app.
I'll be clear: We are not used to paying for mobile applications and it doesn't seem like it's going to change. I write this from Spain. For you who are from the United States or another country, it may be different, but I would say that it is quite generalized.
We have ads, in-app payments and is that the only way to obtain benefits When it comes to selling applications—or this website itself—it is thanks to ads. Rabbit couldn't afford to do it like that, at least in the first place.
Get rid of my cell phone
In a way I hope that the Rabbit r1 will free me from my phone, I don't have to take it out to search for anything and I can simply do what I do today with Perplexity - although with my smartphone - and is that I take it out, ask him and keep it.
I want it to be my assistant, to work with the apps they said they would work, to get better, to update, and to end up being the personal assistant I hope it will be. A promise for the future? Perfect. For $200 I can afford to make it so.
I think there is a great idea behind R1 and that it is a long path that needs support and criticism, but that it is founded, not simply destroying for the sake of destroying. It we saw with the AI Pin and now we are seeing it with the Rabbit r1.
To develop what they have in hand required capital and I think it is a good decision to sell something physical instead of the application that everyone seems to expect. They have sold more than 100,000 units in pre-sale. Do you think they would have come close to that figure with an app? Now here near.
For my part, I think they have taken the best path. I have bought it with expectations for the future, so much so that I know that the hypothetical r2 will greatly improve what the Rabbit r1 could be. I think that in the future it could be an app, but not today or in the short term.
No, the Rabbit r1 cannot be an application, at least for now. Maybe in the future, but for now I'm looking forward to the arrival of my unit. I hope to have it in my hands soon with realistic expectations and being honest.
