OpenAI Buys Jony Ive's AI Startup to 'Completely Reimagine What It Means to Use a Computer'

[yustas]

There are only two commandments. 1) Stay hungry, stay foolish. 2) Don't forget the 1st commandment.

What do you think Steve and Jony would make today? It's obvious. Imagine you tell your device what you want in plain language, and it does it. This is where this is going. Imagine no apps, no files, no documents. Just one unifying standard to do whatever you manually do on different devices. The next Apple is the company that does it first and well.

 

[xiJulian_]

It's what happens when you get bored at a company shipping the same product every year with an extra button or a slightly different colour.

Wasn’t he the one designing the products? Lol

 

[mrhick01]

Tim Cook without Ive is not working either...

A completely subjective opinion with a skewed concept of what a CEO does.

Steve Jobs was a unicorn. Steve became a great CEO because he experienced a bitter failure and humbling when he was ousted from Apple in 1985, and learned from that setback.

Jobs hired Tim Cook for a reason. Jobs appointed Tim Cook as his successor for a reason. Jobs didn't expect Cook to be him, but I'm sure he understood what Cook meant for the company's bottom line and sustainability.

 

[KurtWilde]

No like all of the original unibody Macbook line, original iPads, first ten iPhones, (Apple has done barely anything with it since), the Apple Watch (again barely changed since).

Do Apple currently have any industrial design staff? must be an easy job...

The last patent that Ives had with Apple is for Vision Pro’s EyeSight.

Before that it an iPad with a Digital Crown.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Will this allow me to view and enjoy my NFTs?

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

you can't foundation a ecosystem on AI, it's a tool, not a platform.

The mere mortal need a UI.

 

[LogicalApex]

I will reserve judgement until I see the devices. They refer to existing computing devices as legacy. But they don’t show what a new path is. Some things are legacy, but forever enduring (like the wheel). I can’t yet imagine how “AI” itself replaces the devices we compute with.

I can imagine how devices enriched with it can allow us a much better melding of tech and “reality”. Such as some device you wear being able to transcribe and absorb everything you encounter and do in a given day, then help you to both recall it and act on it in new ways. Except, I’d worry deeply about the privacy implications of such a device. I’d also worry about its ability to hallucinate and plant false memories as well.

Definitely there is room here though. Apple is so preoccupied with preserving revenue streams that they are afraid to innovate. Afraid that innovation will mean lost sales in established areas. The iPad is the best example of this. Jobs introduced it as a device that will show us what’s possible beyond traditional computing and smartphones. Instead, we have a Frankenstein’s monster sort of device. A device that’s too powerful and large to be a smartphone and locked so tightly in a straight jacket that it isn’t a computer replacement either. So it has become a glorified portable TV for most people.

Apple needs to take off their handcuffs and innovate; otherwise, they’ll be replaced. They can’t pivot into becoming a glorified web host like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google because their ecosystem is a walled garden.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Wasn’t he the one designing the products? Lol

Not if the company is run by operations people who want to milk the design of devices to death for years on end. That didn't happen under Jobs, he realised manufacturing cost was part and parcel of building great things.

The reason the iPhone exists is because Jobs was convinced someone would bake the iPod functionality into a phone and make their biggest selling product obsolete.

Current Apple are far too risk averse to do that. Unless that changes it's a matter of when and not if.

 

[victorvictoria]

$6.4 billion? that's all? Apple could have bought it with petty cash. Wonder why they didn't? Or when they realize they have to acquire OpenAI to stay relevant.

 

[victorvictoria]

How, exactly, is AI helping normal people?

What are "normal" people? It's helped me resolve all kinds of tech issues. I like to think I'm normal...

 

[cjsuk]

By doing their homework for them?

No we can spot that a mile away believe me.

Do you think it's trained on people who know what they are talking about? Even half of wikipedia is poorly contrived garbage.

 

[verniesgarden]

Could you imagine being able to sell your company for 6.5 billion and you never had to create a marketable product?

 

[bladerunner88]

I know many disagree, and that's fine, but every passing month Apple is just giving me big Nokia/Blackberry vibes. No news related to Apple gives me any confidence that a course correction is near.

Right? And Nothing from Tim cept Amazing products in The Pipeline! Except the Pipeline just seems to get longer and longer with nothing new in sight - Not to mention The "New and Improved Siri debacle...

Over promise and under deliver Much?

 

[KurtWilde]

Not if the company is run by operations people who want to milk the design of devices to death for years on end. That didn't happen under Jobs, he realised manufacturing cost was part and parcel of building great things.

The reason the iPhone exists is because Jobs was convinced someone would bake the iPod functionality into a phone and make their biggest selling product obsolete.

Current Apple are far too risk averse to do that. Unless that changes it's a matter of when and not if.

Apple Vision Pro seems fairly ambitious, some might say risky.

 

[Left0verture]

Many here disagree because they are very immersed in Apple’s ecosystem. It’s great there now but the danger is you don’t know what’s going on outside. Apple is very publicly behind in AI. They are also behind in foldables (the rumor of next years folding iPhone sounds great until you understand that competitors are already moving to trifolds). Apple is behind in home devices. Apple is behind in wearables. Apple is behind in soo many new tech categories and AI is tying them all together.

I’m not saying Apple is DOOMED!1! but I have no confidence in Tim Cook to innovate out of this bind

I’m definitely immersed in Apple’s ecosystem, but I’m also getting bored with the snails’ pace of innovation. I find it difficult to get excited over camera tweaks, new colors and pride wallpaper. What do I want? (I don’t even know. It’s like Steve Jobs said: “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'"

 

[zombierunner]

And then apple buys open ai … well done Agent Ive.

 

[cjsuk]

There are only two commandments. 1) Stay hungry, stay foolish. 2) Don't forget the 1st commandment.

What do you think Steve and Jony would make today? It's obvious. Imagine you tell your device what you want in plain language, and it does it. This is where this is going. Imagine no apps, no files, no documents. Just one unifying standard to do whatever you manually do on different devices. The next Apple is the company that does it first and well.

Thing is that's not how humans operate. We spend the first decade of our lives manipulating tangible things. We spend the rest of it building complex taxonomies to organise it.

 

[LoveToMacRumors]

Meanwhile :

User: “Hey Siri, text Mom: I’m running 10 minutes late.”

Siri: “Your message to Mom says: ‘I am running 10 minutes late.’ Ready to send it?”

User: “Wait—change ‘10’ to ‘15’.”

Siri: “I’m sorry, I can’t change the message. Do you want to send it or cancel?”

 

[Falco McGregor]

Yes lets ignore all of the countless other things that Ive designed at Apple. You know the one's that pretty much shaped modern Apple's identity.

Jonny Ive is a first ballot hall of fame designer whose department at Apple also shipped the absolute worst physical keyboard ever on a laptop, a $17,000 gold watch that was outdated in a year and an iPhone that bent in your pocket. Curious if he's walking into a situation in which he has complete free rein and what he ends up doing with it, and if he and Altman can co-exist in the same way he and Jobs did.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

What are "normal" people? It's helped me resolve all kinds of tech issues. I like to think I'm normal...

Does it help provide food, leisure time, or shelter?
Or does it make it slightly easier to be more productive at your job?

 

[Simmias]

A new AI pin...now in 24K gold.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Apple Vision Pro seems fairly ambitious, some might say risky.

Risky was what Jobs did built a product that could make his biggest selling product obsolete.

Vision Pro isn't making anything obsolete. Vision Pro is what you do when you don't really want to do anything ambitious with your core product line lest the shareholders get upset.

Might not be soon but if Apple don't find the next thing to the iPhone, someone else will.

 

[Reason077]

I thought Jony got tired of working for the corporate machine. He quit so he could run his own small elite design studio, right? But now he’s working for OpenAI? Huh??!!

 

[reyesmac]

If I was developing something revolutionary with AI, it would be a computer connected to a ridiculously huge database of code and when you require something, it would build the application you need on the fly the way you want it. It would not be able to do everything in its first iteration but you could use it to edit and manipulate common file formats. The only thing stopping such a possibility is how much work it takes to make it. But it's technically possible. How a 3rd party could make money from that is offering their own database of code so you can build even more advanced programs on the fly. You can lock them in or you can keep adding to them. THAT is revolutionary and completely different but still within the real of reality. Things like browsing the web, getting mail and all that would be built in to it. And technically could all be web based to the point you can log in to your home server and run the app you built from a Mac or pc that is running it from your own computer or cloud based computer, but its still the program you built. There would need to be some store you can publish your app for those who dont want to bother making their own. If it's not going in this direction, then they better have something useful because its just going to be overpriced and hyped.

 

[cire1244]

This feels like an OpenAI Hail Mary because they know the AI itself is no longer special.

Thing is, I think it's worth a shot for them. Good and new hardware is the next clear differentiator. We'll have to see if they can achieve it - I am skeptical unless it somehow totally replaces the iPhone.