Jin Lei from Au Fei Temple
Quantum Position | 公众号 QbitAI
Rabbit R1, which claims to overturn all APPs, was overturned first.
At the beginning of the year, when the high-profile publicity was made, CEO Lu Cheng said that it was equipped with a new operating system, Rabbit OS.
As a result, in the past two days, Android expert Mishaal Rahman (hereinafter referred to as "Largo") has found a lot of clues -
This thing is a shell Android!
In Largo's words:
Not only is the internal system Android, but even the entire interface is powered by the Android app.
And Largo has also successfully "ported" the Rabbit R1 to Android, which can run on Google Pixel 6a phones......
This can explain the long-standing question of everyone: why is Rabbit R1 not an APP?
Because it's just an app!
The exposure of this news really blew up in the technology circle.
The Verge甚至非常犀利地点评道：
Artificial intelligence is in the Juicero era.
(Juicero: An "IQ tax" juicer, now referring to unnecessarily complex technological innovations, overpriced, and overhyped.) ）
In the end, Rabbit R1 CEO Lu Cheng also responded.
was exposed to the shell of Android
In fact, Largo's experiment is also based on the long-standing confusion about Rabbit R1 just mentioned.
Although in the course of Largo's actual experience, some of the features that can be achieved with the Rabbit R1 are acknowledged, including:
Communicate with large language models, take photos to get information about objects, play music on Spotify, hail a ride with Uber, order food with Doordash, and more.
But that's basically it, it seems that everything that Rabbit R1 can do can be replicated on Android apps.
So Largo also had a similar question: why doesn't Rabbit R1 make an APP, it has to be made into $199 hardware, and it has to be configured separately, and the battery performance is average?
By chance, a netizen shared Rabbit R1's launcher APK (Android application package) with Largo.
So Largo had an idea, and after some tinkering work, he planned to find a way to install the Rabbit R1 on an Android phone, the Google Pixel 6a.
Don't pretend not to know, pretend to be scared.
After Largo installed this APK on his phone, the Pixel 6a directly changed to the Rabbit R1!
And in terms of device operation, the volume up button of the Pixel 6a corresponds to the button on the side of the Rabbit R1.
With this button, Largo can follow the prompts and complete the step-by-step setup wizard to create a Rabbit R1 account.
Since the Rabbit R1's display is much smaller and has a much lower resolution than the Pixel 6a, you can see that the home screen interface takes up only a small part of the phone's display.
After installing and setting it up, you can use the Android version of Rabbit R1 to ask questions and communicate with the AI assistant.
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Largo didn't test other features on the Android device, such as Spotify, photo recognition, etc., but he said it wouldn't be a surprise if other features didn't work properly.
Because Rabbit R1's launcher APK is pre-installed in the firmware, there are some permissions that may not be available to the user.
However, Largo felt that the current experiment was enough to prove a comical fact:
Essentially, many niche AI hardware products, including the Rabbit R1, run on modified versions of AOSP.
Not only that, but Largo also provides evidence of the reverse operation - some users are already running Android apps on Rabbit R1.
Unfortunately, however, this user has now "taken the posted video off the shelves......
However, before that, many netizens have successively posted reviews about Rabbit R1.
Evaluation results of netizens from all walks of life
For example, Marques Brownlee (hereinafter referred to as "Brother Brown") released a new 20-minute evaluation Rabbit R1 video yesterday.
Brother Brown first objectively tested the existing functions of the Rabbit R1, including talking to large models, taking pictures and recognizing objects, etc.
However, in the video, Browngo has a separate chapter called "It's Also Bad".
The first thing he complained about was the battery of the Rabbit R1:
It's already a terrible thing to bring this device with you when you go out with your phone.
And even if you don't use the Rabbit R1, its battery is still clattering, and it runs out of power in about 4 hours, and you have to charge it several times a day.
Not only is the power consumption rate staggering, but it also takes 45 minutes to fully charge such a small device.
Secondly, in terms of features, Brown thinks that the Rabbit R1 lacks a lot of features that he thinks are just very basic, such as not being able to set alarms, setting timers, recording videos and taking photos, not being able to send emails, and not having a built-in calendar......
A lot of the basic features I wanted, I didn't have on the Rabbit R1.
If not, there is no one, Brown also thinks that the hallucinations of the large language model dialogue featured in Rabbit R1 are also quite serious: "very confident in answering the wrong answer".
Also, in terms of operation, there is no "return to the parent menu" button, and you have to scroll to the top of the menu every time.
Adjusting the brightness of the screen has to be done with two hands:
Based on this, Brother Brown also issued a soul torture:
You have touch screen capabilities, but you can only use them for typing.
Why can't the touch screen be used for other functions? It's not too much trouble to use the scroll wheel and buttons.
……
All in all, Brown's assessment of the Rabbit R1 is: $200, I don't know what to do with it.
In addition to Brother Brown, there are also many netizens who have posted about their experiences with the Rabbit R1 on X.
But there is one thing to say, quite yin and yang, such as the following one:
I'm tired of so many people on X saying R1 doesn't work.
It has already had a positive impact on my lifestyle.
Take a closer look at the image below, "This is not a hot dog"...... Well, listening to your words is like listening to your words.
However, for the battery problems that netizens complained about, it seems that the official side of Rabbit R1 has given a fix.
After the updated version, the battery life will be significantly longer:
But in addition to the Rabbit R1 itself, the CEO behind it, Lu Cheng, has once again been rushed to the forefront of heated discussions in the past two days - this time but this time overseas.
Lv Cheng's AI hardware once again stepped into the same river
The reason is Lu Cheng's performance in a press conference two days ago.
The appearance is still very confident, facing the camera to ask "Do you think these giants (in the same field) will pose a threat to you", he said:
I don't care, they do theirs, I do mine.
However, when it came to the demo, it overturned......
He asked the Rabbit R1 to order McDonald's on the spot, but the first attempt failed, and the second attempt took a long time:
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But in fact, this is not the first time that Lu Cheng has hit a wall in AI hardware, counting his past experience, the beginning and the end seem to be repeating the same river.
Cheng Lv, a Chinese serial entrepreneur in the field of AI, graduated from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and founded Raven Tech.
At that time, Raven focused on AI voice interaction, hoping to bring the next generation of operating systems after smartphones, and the products were full of futuristic atmosphere in the demo and release demonstration.
In addition, Lu Cheng himself is born in the 90s, which has attracted much attention from the market. He and his team are also good at dancing with long sleeves, and they will work the gold pasting process of well-known overseas incubators such as YC, and their aura is charming.
In 2017, Baidu wholly acquired Raven, and Lu Cheng served as the general manager of Baidu's smart home hardware, and in the same year, he led the team to release Baidu's first smart speaker, Raven H.
Later, it was revealed at CES in 2018, so that the Wall Street Journal directly sealed this speaker as the best product of the year.
However, even if it was a success, the consumer market did not buy it, and the product never achieved mass production.
Later, at the Baidu World Conference, Lv Cheng made his final appearance and brought wheeled robots to depict the future of family pet robots... But then it was gone.
Perhaps hoping to really prove himself, after a year at Baidu, Lu Cheng chose to leave Baidu and founded Cyber Manufacture Co., an AI-centric company in the United States, the predecessor of today's Rabbit.
Lu Cheng has a hobby of collecting vintage synths, which led him to connect with Jesper Kouthoofd, founder of Swedish audio hardware company Teenage Engineering.
Teenage Engineering specializes in the design and manufacture of electronic devices and related products, including Playdate, a small handheld game console, which it launched in collaboration with software development company Panic.
However, judging from the results of the current sales volume, it is also relatively average.
Later, it came to the Rabbit R1, and Lu Cheng also chose to cooperate with Teenage Engineering to design it.
As for the initial idea of this product, Lu Cheng said:
Although mobile phones are a "necessity" in life, since subscribing to the annual upgrade service of iPhone, I feel more and more that the emotional connection between me and the iPhone is constantly erased.
In other words, he has gradually lost interest in mobile phones.
After some discussions with the Teenage Engineering team, the two sides hit it off, and the idea and design of the Rabbit R1 gradually became clear - to create a gadget that combines AI and retro.
That's where the Rabbit R1 comes in.
So how will the Rabbit R1 perform next, and whether it will reverse the current reputation, the answer will be left to time to answer.
One More Thing
Just after Largo posted the breaking post, his dynamics were updated again.
The first is that his IP or device ID is blocked:
My Pixel 6a now "can't connect to Rabbit OS", so I can't send any queries anymore.
Subsequently, Largo received a personal statement from Lu Cheng, which roughly read:
Rabbit R1 is not an Android app. We are aware of some unofficial rabbit OS app/website emulators.
rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud, with very customized AOSP and low-level firmware modifications, so local pirated APKs without the proper operating system and cloud point will not be able to access our services.
In the wake of today's OTA, we've implemented multiple cloud validation improvements to validate device/client requests.
Well, kind of interesting.
Reference Links:
[1]https://www.androidauthority.com/rabbit-r1-is-an-android-app-3438805/
[2]https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/30/24145838/rabbit-r1-android-app-pixel-6a
[3]https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1785416631818064341
[4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddTV12hErTc
[5]https://twitter.com/MarcelD505/status/1785346490635878837
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