So the Rabbit R1 is just an Android app

Day 122 / 366

I wanted to be positive about the Rabbit R1. In the blog post I wrote earlier about this new AI-powered gadget, I said that at least compared to the Humane AI pin, it is cheaper and does feel cool. The skepticism from all reviewers was still the same, could this not just be an app?

Well as it turns out, the Rabbit OS is actually just an Android app running on a tweaked version of the Android OS. We know this because someone was able to extract the apk and run it on their own Android phone.

The Android operating system is open source. This is how companies like Samsung and Redmi are able to modify it to create their own versions of it. For example, in OnePlus devices we get OxygenOS, a modified version of Android OS.

This means that the Rabbit R1 is nothing but an Android phone with fewer features and a different hardware design. I was even wrong about it running an LLM locally. Turns out that it just makes API calls to an LLM that runs on the cloud for all of its functionalities. Hell you can get a much better user experience with the same features with a 100-dollar Android phone.

I am back to my stance that AI as of right now is more hype than substance. This is looking more and more like a bubble with people trying to make a quick buck with sub standard products.