omg i just woke up and it’s the funniest thing ever
have you guys heard of rabbit r1, the new “teenage engineering” ai device of the “future”
people cracked it, turns out it’s just a cheap android 13 device running a system flutter app

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone They somehow updated it to disable the UI when the app is on an android phone

@blobcat what the fuck this makes it all so much worse lol

RE: https://labyrinth.zone/objects/35ac636d-8283-4486-b239-67deb5abab0c

@yassie_j@labyrinth.zone @blobcat@labyrinth.zone idk why anyone thought it was anything else tbh, even from the previews from the company itself it didn't look like anything other than that lmao

@atom apparently they released a forced update that now checks network requests to block non-rabbit r1 devices lol
you can probably spoof your android phone and make the app think it’s a rabbit device again

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone you might be able to but i don't know anybody who's done it

@yassie_j all of these devices could have just been an app, but it’s better to make a 200$ box made out of plastic

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone i saw a video where it says its not tracking the location of it's owner but also gives the weather and sunset times of his exact location

Another funny thing.
Rabbit released a statement saying:

rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP […], a local bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won’t be able to access our service

Which is a lie. It worked on Android phones, the only problem was the camera crashing. They released an update to uphold their lies. Really funny.

RE: https://labyrinth.zone/objects/35ac636d-8283-4486-b239-67deb5abab0c

@blobcat link or article? Is this the same teenage engineering that makes the op and calculator synths?

@bjompen https://www.androidauthority.com/rabbit-r1-is-an-android-app-3438805/ https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/30/24145838/rabbit-r1-android-app-pixel-6a

@blobcat ah, I see now. "Designed by" - it is not a product by the same company, but the case is (or something).
Reason for asking - teenage engineering is quite big in synths here in Sweden. This felt way out of their normal area. Thank you!

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone It's just an cheap chinese phone that rebranded into AI device 😂🤙

@Stellar @blobcat That was Maques Brownlee. And he specifically said it was really close to his location, but didn't say it was his location. That indicates to me that they were using his crude location from something like his current IP address. But yes, the product was still lying. Also, I am still against this product on a fundamental level.

@blobcat

I found this and found it frankly hilarious (alt-text)

@Stellar imo what i think might be happening is that LLMs itself don’t have any location tracking feature, but it still has it since the app itself gives it your location somewhere in the prompt, the LLM itself doesn’t track your location so it says it doesn’t, it’s the wrapper that’s doing it

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone could make for a funni emulator (tho it'd likely suck)

@blobcat Part of the AI-shitshow these days.

@rato

At the same time, it is the first well-thought-out alternative to the dominant way of using mobile applications on Android or iOS

sure

@blobcat also explains why it drinks battery in no time at all. 1000mAh for a display, Android-capable SoC, radios etc... total scam imo. No intent of producing something usable, just something that is fashionable.

@blobcat @thomholwerda

Even funnier https://web.archive.org/web/20240423183114/https://github.com/rabbitscam/rabbitr1

@elilla @blobcat
sounds like a response directed to investors, not users

@bjompen @blobcat

Agreed. I love playing with my Pocket Operators. Felt like a weird divergence from their typical stuff.

@blobcat Fair warning, this is NOT the "Rabbit" everyone was talking about after that Sex and the City episode.

@wcbdata @blobcat

I’ve been out of the loop and have to admit, that any technical device called “rabbit” will first make me think of this.

@blobcat
So if it's an Android device, someone could easily make it run Doom, making it much more useful. Of course, it was eventually going to run Doom anyway

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone shocking! /s

@blobcat Kartel aesthetics.

@blobcat seems like it would have just been easier to release the app and more profitable too right? no need to expense a bunch of hardware?

@elilla @blobcat

Reminds me of… Decades ago, there was a BBS that pivoted to become enterprise chat. This was loooong before chat was mainstream.

They used an obfuscated protocol because their business model was selling the app, and they didn’t want anyone making a free app. Same energy: Attempting to control the part of the product that should be open as hell.

They‘re still around serving education, that lovely market where users are captive to your customers and you can abuse them at will.

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone we shall not allow this attempt at claiming the bnuy as their own!
or something. Pretty funny, though.

@blobcat hang on, how does the thing open directly at the flutter app then? shouldn't android show a home screen?

@blobcat 2024 version of this

@bjompen @blobcat I guess it looks like the Playdate handheld console, which was designed by Teenage Engineering

@gorplop @blobcat @elilla
damn necromancer

@hack13 @blobcat On the contrary. While releasing an app to great fanfare might attract users, and not just any type of, but enthusiasts and tech oriented, those tend to be very picky, demanding, and really hard to monetize on the long term (RIP Ratio Launcher). On the other hand if you show trinkets and gadgets wrapped up in promises, is the VC people who get excited and willing to dump money. Of course you can release a good app, nurture a small but loyal base and make a decent amount and little to no headlines, but there's nothing small or cheap about the AI fuckery and everybody wants to be on the Verge podcast, so here we are

@blobcat what else could such a thing have been?

@esoteric_programmer afaik it’s a system-level launcher

@blobcat Ok, that's hacky as hell lol. And here I was, thinking it's linux with a cool kiosk wayland compositor, running a gtk app or something lol.

@blobcat
Does this thing have cellular? If one can root that thing and set up a clean version of Android this would be actually the first smartphone in a while with a sensible form factor and size

@magnetic_tape yeah, you need to put a sim card inside to even use it
the problem is, afaik the screen isn’t a touch one, and the only controls is the scrollwheel and a button on the side

@blobcat
Damn, so close. It's 2024 and still no company understand the pretty huge market for simple, small (palm sized) and smart computing devices that actually fit in a regular pocket

@blobcat
I read here and there that the display might be tactile

@blobcat
This is the nabaztag of 2024, the company is going to do a speedrun to bankruptcy. I wonder how soon we'll see fire sales of those r1 units and how well will this device be for a port of a third party OS.

@phi1997 already happened apparently, but the video is private

@phi1997 the only image i could find

@blobcat @magnetic_tape MKBHD mentioned this in his review, it actually does have a touchscreen, they just disabled it for literally everything except for a terminal-like prompt mode where it pops up the keyboard lol

That being said, I think it only has 1000mah battery, so even with a custom rom battery life would be disappointing

@blobcat Not even a little bit surprised.

The only thing I have heard from anyone who has actually laid hands on one of these devices is "Utter Hypeware Garbage".

@blobcat @magnetic_tape According to their website, it is a touchscreen, so it is basically just a really tiny android device, even down to the screen

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone i am SO fucking pissed off teenage engineering are getting traction because of this fucking piece of shit . let them make cool quirky audio gear in peace god damnit

@blobcat Oh, so the product was essentially just unnecessary e-waste the whole time? Like I'm super surprised at all 😂

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone android is the worst choise to make. just use linux directly, without that android bloat and inefficiency

@blobcat this has gotta be the funniest shit I've seen today so far

@blobcat So that MKBHD short where he caught the R1 gaslighting him about his location might actually be a lot more worrisome than initially thought. The only reason I can think of to release specific hardware for an app like this and lie about it, would be to bypass android's permission system. If you can't deny location permissions, it is most likely using it all the time.

@feoh @blobcat JFC, can they PLEASE just go back TO solely making pocket synths before they embarrass EVERYONE?

@blobcat I was watching a bunch of tech reviewers be impressed at this specifically because it wasn't the ridiculous AI pin, but... It's just a dedicated device for something your phone already does.

So many of these failing consumer electronics products are just a device that does something your phone does.

@Jo @blobcat Too late :\

@blobcat nowadays there’s appliance that are not android on cheap soc?

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone @magnetic_tape@infosec.exchange it is a touch screen but you're not allowed to use it other than the "terminal mode"

@blobcat it uses a 5.5 year old low end mediatek smartphone SOC. truly the technology of the future

@blobcat @donncha

People STAN hard for Teenage engineering, especially good at hardware interfaces for funky creative ideas, that they will happily pay a bit more for.

@blobcat @acarson Next thing you’re going to tell me is my Amazon Fire TV is just an Android phone with a big screen attached, or car infotainment systems are just Android phones in the dashboard. Surely not. /S UX matters. You can use speech recognition on a PC to talk to a voice assistant, but putting it in a speaker simplifies it and makes it more approachable for the general public. Lots of things are like that.

@bryansmart @blobcat True, but it's still kind of humorous that this is being passed off as some new shiny awesome thing. Kind of like how iPhones are surrounded by a ton of hype still until you strip away the appearance of "magic".

@acarson @blobcat Wasn't the Amazon Echo the same thing? All that was possible 20 years ago with Voice XML apps, but Amazon put it in a canister speaker, and now it's an AI assistant. Lots of us in the late 90s and early 2000s hooked Home Theater PCs to our TVs, but people put the PC in the TV, with a customized remote, and now it's a "smart TV". Did people think this thing was a genie or something? It's just marketing for non-techies. That's all.

@bryansmart @blobcat Yeah people are basically passing this off as a genie.

@acarson @blobcat Think of our blindness products. Pacmate was an iPaq with a Braille keyboard and display. Most all of the notetakers now are the same, but Android phones. The new Braille'n'Speak is essentially a Raspberry Pi. All our revolutionary blindy AI smart glasses are just generic crap Android-based smart glasses with custom software overlays and marketing.

@blobcat teenage engineering is a legit company that makes really slick hardware designs. This product has their hallmark quirky retro-futuristic style, and you'd have to try really hard to convince me it doesn't look cool on a purely aesthetics level.
Feels wrong to throw them under the bus for what the rabbit people are doing with that design, tbh.

@Chancerubbage @blobcat I'd never heard of them before this. Apparently they're big in musical instruments in the Netherlands?

@donncha @blobcat

Yes very nice tiny odd flexible musical instruments mostly. Small expensive, but very creative and flexible for the price.

@blobcat I would assume that the app now does a check for the device's fingerprint (containing the device's name, android version and some other info)

Should be relatively easy to extract and use on a non-rabbit device using a Magisk module

@bryansmart @blobcat @acarson Yeah, UX matters, agreed, but this is different than the examples you mention, because everyone today is walking around with a phone in their pocket which could perform the same functions as this device.

Whereas, putting android into a big TV screen still requires the big TV screen. Or a big speaker for Alexa. And your car has a screen that can't be reproduced by a little phone. And I would say that the Amazon Echo/Alexa also kinda failed.

@blobcat@labyrinth.zone Imagine a Galaxy Z Flip 5 in the closed position running that