See, it turns out that the Rabbit R1 seems to run Android under the hood and the entire interface users interact with is powered by a single Android app. A tipster shared the Rabbit R1’s launcher APK with us, and with a bit of tinkering, we managed to install it on an Android phone, specifically a Pixel 6a.

Edit: Someone also got doom and Minecraft running on this thing

  • lobut@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    R1s statement in response from the article:

    “rabbit r1 is not an Android app. We are aware there are some unofficial rabbit OS app/website emulators out there. We understand the passion that people have to get a taste of our AI and LAM instead of waiting for their r1 to arrive. That being said, to clear any misunderstanding and set the record straight, rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware modifications, therefore a local bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won’t be able to access our service. rabbit OS is customized for r1 and we do not support third-party clients. Using a bootlegged APK or webclient carries significant risks; malicious actors are known to publish bootlegged apps that steal your data. For this reason, we recommend that users avoid these bootlegged rabbit OS apps.”

    So there’s literally no reason for this to have been a device at all.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, if you weren’t convinced this was a waste of money before finding out that it’s like this, you’re not going to be convinced by this.

    • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      AOSP and lower level firmware modifications

      But it’s android, so linux, so GPL2, so they have to share these modifications (if they really exist). It’s bootleg until soneone sues them.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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        7 months ago

        You’d be surprised how many companies ignore GPL. Providing broken links to the source code tarballs, telling you to send an email request to get the code then proceed to ignore the requests, etc. Only the most famous case got sued, the rest simply got away with it.

        • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          They wrote “lower level firmware modifications”, AOSP runs on Linux kernel, and firmware modifications usually mean they modified the Linux kernel. This device seems like a regular Android phone, and afaik this rules apply to all Android phones, that’s why Android rom cooking can exist.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            They may be compelled to release any driver code associated, however firmware is not covered by relation to kernel. Linux runs on mostly proprietary firmware. The “linux-firmware” package in many distributions that contains hot plug firmware is mostly proprietary blobs.

            That said I doubt they had much significant firmware work, it may just be logo and some tweaked configuration from their SoC vendor. They likely had to modify AOSP a bit more to allow their launcher unfettered access to the device in ways not modeled by standard AOSP, but that’s user space that isn’t GPL.

    • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      No rea$on at all, except for that one little rea$on that we alway$ $eem to keep coming back to…

    • theherk@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Except that some people may like this form factor for these features. Of course it can be delivered in phones, but it does seem at least possible to me that some may prefer a device like this.

      • lobut@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        They’re possibly complimentary but not mutually exclusive. I think if they sold the form factor of the device over the phone that that would have been more honest marketing.

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    7 months ago

    I heard about this thing but couldn’t really tell what the idea was. I think I want to carry less, not more on me.

  • Cosmo@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Haha can’t run R1 on an iPhone. Take that Apple. Absolute gamechanger.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Challenge accepted. I’m going to get an IPhone, load up an Android cloud emulator, upload the Rabbit R1 app, then use it to access its orange version of ChatGPT.

    • Cosmo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’ll be cool when the concept of “Large Action Model” works well. But def not worth it to tie your money to a single horse this early; a lot of people want that concept to work well, so I’m sure there’s a lot of work being done in that area. Rn I agree that it’s just a worse ChatGPT.

    • jg1i@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      We know it’s just ChatGPT (and Perplexity). That’s why we bought it. It’s just a fun frontend for a chat bot. That’s like the main point.

      • mriormro@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s more just a waste of resources. This thing has no reason to exist.

        It’s the ‘this could have been an email’ of consumer devices.

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    7 months ago

    I saw the Marquess Brownlee review of this thing last night and I wonder why companies make this crap and who is fool enough to fund it. It’s obviously doomed to fail, as are most “smart” gadgets & devices. The best that can be said for it, is at least there is no subscription to use it and it’s not outrageously expensive but that’s damning it with faint praise.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      VCs will just follow the hype of the day and invest in anything that spouts the right buzzwords. But they’re aware of course, that most of those will fail. It takes just one out of ten to make it for it to be worthwhile.

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        7 months ago

        If they weeded out some of the shittier ideas they’d be one in nine or eight.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      This is the second time I’ve read about this specific reviewer having a sane perspective on way overhyped gadgets. Sounds worth checking out. I’m used to videos being completely worthless because they are usually trying to get product affiliate money and YouTube ad revenue at the same time.

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    7 months ago

    Rabbit is paying for processing those Ai requests. If everyone starts to download it to their android devices they will literally go bankrupt

  • vext01@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 months ago

    Watched a review of this thing. Don’t see the appeal. Especially don’t see why it needs to be a separate bit of hardware.

    • jg1i@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It needs to be separate hardware because Google and Apple have a strangle hold on their respective OSes. No way in hell Apple/Google would give a random app deep integration with AI. Although not currently present, it seems like Rabbit (and Humane) want to give a ton of control over the system, data, and apps to the AI.

      • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        All of the apps on the rabbit run in the cloud anyway, as well as the AI bits. Nothing is running locally on the device. There’s nothing the rabbit device does that couldn’t be done via an app or web portal to those cloud services instead.

        At least with the Humane AI Pin it was an attempt to create a new class of device. The rabbit r1 however is effectively just an oddly shaped Android phone locked to running a single app. The only reason it seems to exist is to allow an existing hardware company to jump on the AI bandwagon.

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        Makes sense, they can do whatever they want with AOSP as long as they don’t want to cert it as ‘Android’ to have access to Play Store.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        One amendment, I’d say it’s because existing phones won’t let an app have access to listening for a wake word or phrase, and a phone hard codes that to the phone vendor code. Having passive access to microphone and camera and activating and showing what they want to the screen without contending with a platform lock screen that won’t play ball with them, that sort of thing. “AI” access wasn’t really going to be the challenge.

        It’s not that they didn’t run on existing phones, I could see that, I find it more stupid that they stopped short of just making their device a phone capable of traditional interaction. As it stands it’s going to be a subset of capability of phones coming out this year that will likely offer similar “AI” features while also continuing to support traditional hand held usage. If they didn’t want to sign up for all that, they probably could have teamed up with someone like Motorola, who might be hungry enough to let Rabbit do their thing on a Moto G variant or something.

  • nomadjoanne@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Yeah in the presentation of it was clearly idiotic. I often wonder how seriously these silicon valley people actually take themselves privately.

  • chrash0@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    what else would it be? it’s a pretty common embedded target. dev kits from Qualcomm come with Android and use the Android bootloader and debug protocols at the very least.

    nobody is out here running a plain Linux kernel and maintaining a UI stack while AOSP exists. would be a foolish waste of time for companies like Rabbit to use anything else imo.

    to say it’s “just an Android device” is both true and a mischaracterization. it’s likely got a lot in common with a smartphone, but they’ve made modifications and aren’t supporting app stores or sideloading. doesn’t mean you can’t do it, just don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work 1-1

  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    I thought we always knew that the device was going to be Android.

    It’s crazy you can just download and run it on any other android device though. I’d have thought they’d have locked it down somewhat.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Big whoop. MediaTek eval kits offer either Linux or Android AOSP. Why is this news?