It made a splash with its new-old look and distinctive red color, but it will nonetheless be remembered as one of the biggest flops of 2024.
Remember that it was in Las Vegas last January. The Rabbit R1 presented itself as a little red gadget, almost a toy, that allows the use of voice applications. smart phone Without having to take it out of your pocket, simply with your voice. A product reminiscent of Humane's AI Pin… which seems destined to meet the same fate. Read in the press.
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Glorious application
The Rabbit R1 is available in the US only and retails for $199. It has a single button that allows it to speak its command (eg: “Release a song from Taylor Swift's latest album”). The simplicity that made many wonder why Rabbit wasn't just an app. It turned out to be one of them.
Freelance journalist Mishaal Rahman He was actually able to install Rabbit on a Pixel 6a and get it working with a few minor tweaks. While he admits some features are missing, he is able to make queries to the Assistant.
Rabbit founder Jesse Liu spoke in columns the edge To clarify the situation.
“Rabbit R1 is not an Android app… Rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very specific AOSP and low-level firmware changes, so illegal local APK without proper OS and cloud will not be able to access our service. Rabbit OS is customized for R1 and we do not support third-party clients.”
In addition ?
Indeed, things are going badly. Even if we understand that Rabbit R1 needs some additional permissions in order not to be just a glorified app, the fact that a journalist managed to get similar results on a smartphone released more than two years ago undermines the promises of the tool, which is supposed to replace our phone.
But this is just the tree that hides the forest. When we look at the tests in the American press, we realize that almost all of them denounce the poor autonomy (which seems to improve with the latest update) and the mandatory connection to a wifi network to benefit from the service. It is impossible to accommodate a SIM or eSIM card in the device. Its use is therefore rather local.
Now the Rabbit R1 also seems to do well on specific searches. It would be faster to use than pulling out your phone and running the query on it. GoogleIn addition, the built-in camera makes searching easier by attaching a photo.
In short: everything gives the impression that the Rabbit R1 was designed too quickly to let the rush towards artificial intelligence run out. Our smartphones can sleep soundly.
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