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OpenAI Buys Jony Ive's AI Startup to 'Completely Reimagine What It Means to Use a Computer'
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Good questions and one's they'll probably think hard about. One device also does not need to do everything. If it's something akin to Apple's family of products that work really well together.
If it's a smartphone without a screen...
How do I frame the photo I'm about to take? A viewfinder? Bit tricky for selfies....
Show it to someone once I've taken it? Built in projector?
How do I frame the photo I'm about to take? A viewfinder? Bit tricky for selfies....
Show it to someone once I've taken it? Built in projector?
Where is the money coming from for this? ChatGPT doesn’t even make money on its paid subscribers and is not on any path to making money, and is facing large legal concerns. SoftBank, who’s heading their current fundraising push, is also having to take out billions of dollars in loans to provide money to them, and they’re facing a credit downgrade.
This is so obviously a farce. The Humane pitch was almost exactly the same, an AI device engineered by ex-Apple folks that would bring AI to the masses. Did people forget so soon?
This is so obviously a farce. The Humane pitch was almost exactly the same, an AI device engineered by ex-Apple folks that would bring AI to the masses. Did people forget so soon?
Indeed, I use it nearly every day. Even for none tech things.
Yesterday I asked chatgpt to recommend a circular saw that I can fit to a Makita Guide Rail. It came back way too expensive, I said I'm a DIYér so need decent but not pro grade and it came back with a Makita saw, the adapter for it and where was a good price. I checked the prices and ordered.
It saved me a good bit of time comparing which saws had which bases and which would work with my existing blades.
The video visually namechecks a couple of key SF North Beach landmarks: the Transamerica Pyramid and Cafe Zoetrope, where Ive and Altman sat down for their coffee and stroked each others' egos. It reminds me of Web 2.0-era SF/Silicon Valley, which was a lot more optimistic than it is currently. I'm still stuck on the AI as product-or-feature conundrum, which was brought up earlier in the thread and Jobs famously challenged the Dropbox founders about years ago.
I think we can all agree that there are huge benefits of AI functioning as an extra digital brain or repository. Is that a product? A platform? A feature? The answer will dictate who wins/loses and how much real money is made from all of this hype. I don't know if this is a harbinger, but I was looking at a web tool that a year ago breathless hyped up their AI bonafides, including telling users step-by-step when AI was triggered and for what. I checked that process again earlier this week and found that the step descriptions are much more vague with the AI items scrubbed. I can understand that, since the same tool's agentic AI made a few associations in the past that I personally had to clean up. Sure, AI can speed up many processes and workflows. But I won't have a lot of patience if I have to dial my BS detector to 11 to make up for the mistakes.
I think we can all agree that there are huge benefits of AI functioning as an extra digital brain or repository. Is that a product? A platform? A feature? The answer will dictate who wins/loses and how much real money is made from all of this hype. I don't know if this is a harbinger, but I was looking at a web tool that a year ago breathless hyped up their AI bonafides, including telling users step-by-step when AI was triggered and for what. I checked that process again earlier this week and found that the step descriptions are much more vague with the AI items scrubbed. I can understand that, since the same tool's agentic AI made a few associations in the past that I personally had to clean up. Sure, AI can speed up many processes and workflows. But I won't have a lot of patience if I have to dial my BS detector to 11 to make up for the mistakes.
Ive knows what the people want. Forget the pin and glasses. We want a cyborg parrot that we can mount on our shoulders. Camera eyes, tiny microphone ears, and a speaker inside it's porcelain beak. An always connected, AI enhanced little buddy that allows us to live out our pirate fantasies. It will be glorious!
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
This is exactly the mission statement that jobs would’ve set Apple.
And I’d predict that just how the iPhone knowingly cannibalised the iPod, he would’ve been willing for this new device to cannibalise the iPhone.
And what could this device be?
I’m thinking that at least it’ll be something like the device that the main character in ‘Her’ uses, where audio is the primary interface with a screen showing additional output information only.
Like this device, you can be sure it’ll have a camera so that ChatGPT can interact with your environment. It may even be paired with smart glasses down the road.
ChatGPT will surely also be able to know everything about your stuff - email, files, calendar etc - which it doesn’t yet.
Presumably it’ll do this via using a web browser / APIs in the backend as I’d imagine that this device won’t have a web browser nor will it have the ability to install apps. Nothing time wasting here.
It’ll no doubt have agentic capabilities where it can book seats for you etc etc.
And like the AI in her you can imagine that it’ll be pretty proactive in suggesting various things to you - which will be a killer feature.
But you can imagine that your smartphone can do all of this and more. So perhaps the key difference is that it won’t cost too much as long as you subscribe to a ChatGPT tier for 1 to 2 years.
Will lots of people buy this ? The jury is out.
Did they say it won’t have a screen? With how cheap displays have gotten I don’t think they’ll do something without one of some sort. Most of what I’d want AI to do for me would be on a screen (for me I want AI to be like an augmented memory, so I want to be able to bring up pictures of people/things/ places, and information and resources in text format)
I’m expecting this to be essentially a smart phone, maybe in a smaller form factor with less powerful specs to bring cost down as a lot of processing will be cloud based, with a UI and APIs built from the ground up with AI interaction in mind so it’s able to do things on your behalf, similar to what the new Siri is supposed to be, but more focused on that aspect.
I’m guessing (hoping) there will still be manual controls as well, but we’ll have to see.
You know what, I like it. If only for the fact that Apple now has another competitor and they might put more thought into their products. The iPhone 16e was such a letdown for me, I was really hoping for a worthy successor to the iPhone SE - getting great value for your money. The iPhone 16e feels like a marketing trick. And don't get me started on the Apple Vision Pro or the whole "Apple Intelligence" debacle.
Let's see where this goes but Apple needs some inspiration - at this point I am not interested in any of their products.
Let's see where this goes but Apple needs some inspiration - at this point I am not interested in any of their products.
I could 100% see it being subsidized by a subscription, I think you’re totally right on that.
Honestly I don’t think the hardware will be all that dissimilar from a smartphone, it will be the software and APIs designed around AI that will differentiate it. Would be kinda cool though if they made it like a wearable armband/cuff using a flexible display, so it could be hands free most of the time
I suspect it’ll look more like a minimal piece of jewellery, as Ive was always about wanting the computer to disappear.
But I think you’re onto something - the display I mentioned may in fact be on a watch - after all Ive is the designer of the Apple Watch - but one that nags you way less than the Apple Watch does.
Thinking it through, we may end up with a suite of products rather than it being just one thing only ie a watch and glasses may be optional extras.
How can you trust AI, when it seems to get so much wrong?
If it is screenless, then how can you watch videos or do a video call?
So nope, will not replace smartphones.
Disruptions happen all the time. We should not be led to believing that Apple only works on next 1-2 iterations of their existing products. They have teams of teams who think beyond the next decade of where humans would be accessing technology for all stages of their daily life.
AVP is critizied a lot for what it delivers now, but it's the only viable solutions that emulated what the future of UX could be shaped. It needs to be lighter, last longer, be easier to engage with and all but the fundamentals of the direction of what it does would not change much and Apple is IMO has found a viable path there.
I'm excited about the io and how things might be shaped in 10 years in terms of daily computing. It feels like a IBM Simon/Nokia 9000 moment only on the fact that this would most likely be not what a device can do physically, but a device that could bridge all the gaps between all the technologies that we use.
I do like Ive, I think he’s a decent guy and obviously cares about people.
But I feel like their is a cult of Apple around him at times, that make him bigger than he is.
His design principles are actually based on other key figures in the design industry. And there were many before him, and will be many more after him.
It’s just he was around and got the chance at the right place and right time. Maybe he knows that only too well.
But I feel like their is a cult of Apple around him at times, that make him bigger than he is.
His design principles are actually based on other key figures in the design industry. And there were many before him, and will be many more after him.
It’s just he was around and got the chance at the right place and right time. Maybe he knows that only too well.