everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Tag: app economy

  • OpenAI has an App Store

    OpenAI has an App Store

    OpenAI’s DevDay keynote had the look and feel of all Silicon Valley product announcements – a well-scripted parade of announcements, a couple live demos, and even a “one more thing” that is revealed with low-key fanfare but, by it’s placement at the end of the talk, signals to the world that this is the game-changer.

    That thing was the app store for custom AI chatbots. To make it easier to grok and talk about, OpenAI has co-opted the acronym for the rather technical mouthful that is “Generative Pre-trained Transformers” and made it into a product name. Custom versions of ChatGPT are now GPTs. This makes it easier for the broader public to understand and makes it a whole lot easier for marketers to fold into their campaigns in the same way, “There’s an App for that” became a catch phrase for Apple’s app ecosystem, I can see “Just GPT it!” becoming a verb for leveraging AI to do some grunt work for you.

    That’s my 30,000 foot view before diving in and playing around more. Stratechery has a much more informed deep dive on the significance of what was announced and I recommend reading Ben Thompson’s analysis which includes important observations around the significance of OpenAI using Microsoft’s infrastructure and what that partnership means for the market going forward.

    As a teaser, I found this passage thought-provoking,

    This has two implications. First, while this may have been OpenAI’s first developer conference, I remain unconvinced that OpenAI is going to ever be a true developer-focused company. I think that was Altman’s plan, but reality in the form of ChatGPT intervened: ChatGPT is the most important consumer-facing product since the iPhone, making OpenAI The Accidental Consumer Tech Company. That, by extension, means that integration will continue to matter more than modularization, which is great for Microsoft’s compute stack and maybe less exciting for developers.

    The OpenAI Keynote
  • So it begins – iOS CarPlay

    So it begins – iOS CarPlay

    Announced at last year’s WWDC, Apple revealed today that CarPlay, the integrated iOS platform for in-dash entertainment and navigation will be shipping in 2014 models by Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. Notable in its absence was Tesla.

    The ecosystem will limit apps to approved partners so it’s Siri for voice and Apple Maps for navigation. Music is open to 3rd party alternatives to iTunes with icons for Spotify, iHeartRadio and the newcomer Beats Music. Missing at today’s launch is Pandora.

    While a touchscreen launches each app, Siri is now front and center as the main way to interface with each application. I’ve been using Siri to text short messages to my wife while driving and have been pleased with the results.

    Automakers have largely failed to open up their APIs and create any sort of developer ecosystem around applications that interface with their cars. The Prius had a healthy hacking community but it was mostly fringe forum chats about hidden menus and easter eggs. People seem reluctant to brick their Teslas.

    Will the app ecosystem play into which car you’ll buy next? We all wait for Apple’s entry into the battle for the living room but the opening shots in the battle for the dashboard have just been fired.