OpenAI Reportedly Working on an AI Smartphone to Rival iPhone

[MNWildFan]

Not happening - iPhone (or any modern smartphone) can run many AI models, along with zillions or other apps on the same device. So who will want a ChatGPT limited version with no existing ecosystem? It’s gonna be really hard to break the existing iOS/Android dominance, IMO, unless it is a truly revolutionary product.

Exactly

I'm sorry, but I think this is going to be DOA just like other phones that were a one-trick pony

I mean, sure, having the ability to have on-device models could be nice, but let's face it, the models that you can tap into already by way of all of the apps out there is quite powerful already without having to sacrifice on-device resources

 

[chelsel]

I'll keep it next to my Tesla Phone

 

[bjork90210]

They just don’t get why people buy iPhones.

 

[KnowsHowItWorks]

>Such a device would obviously put OpenAI in direct competition with Apple's iPhone.
Lol. Right after trumphone. Imagine “obviously”.

 

[Ct applefan]

nothing says "I'm emotionally mature" than insulting nicknames

I know. It makes you question the age of MR members

 

[smeagol]

Gives me Facebook phone vibes. Gonna be DOA.

 

[Karma*Police]

Anyone who trusts AI with that much power over their lives absolutely deserves whatever happens as a result.

An AI agent allegedly deleted a startup's production database

Spoiler alert: Cursor and Claude aren't supposed to do that.

mashable.com

Your POV dates back to the Industrial Revolution which is how Frankenstein was born.

Did we create a monster we can no longer control? Likely. Is AI that much different than the dependence we have on today’s technology? Not really. Shut down the power grid and see what happens.

The genie is already out of the bag and progress moved on one direction (except Apple’s keyboard which somehow managed to stay stagnant since the OG iPhone).

 

[tranceme]

I like competition. But, OpenAi? No thanks.

 

[teaneedz]

(except Apple’s keyboard which somehow managed to stay stagnant since the OG iPhone).

I disagree. The iOS keyboard has gotten worse with every update to the point of being barely useable (stagnant would be an improvement) -- Apple proving it might be possible to travel backwards in time.

 

[Cesar Battistini]

Me too! Something wasn't right with his departure.

 

[Mousse]

nothing says "I'm emotionally mature" than insulting nicknames

I know. It makes you question the age of MR members

It just tells me that MR members is mostly male.😘 As Red Green, a man among men, once said, "Remember, you may have to grow old, but you don't have to mature."😉

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Aren’t these folks the ones going back to flip phones? They don’t want more tech, they want less. AI simplicity phones will just be a reprieve from the path that all tech seems to head down— an ad-serving, user telemetry machine.

No, not the luddites, the millions of folks that can’t take their first breath in the morning without invoking ChatGPT. Give them a discount on their tokens or free tokens when used from a ChatGPT phone and they’d be ALL over that

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Some good responses in here, but I see a lot of people saying that this thing won't be a threat to Apple. That's probably true, but we should also remember one thing from the past:

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Smugness like that and the "Imagine That" ad campaign showed a complacency that really bit Apple in the posterior, as the years passed. Ternus will most likely get the company moving forward with some direction now, instead of just inertia, but everything in the works at other companies - especially ones like Altman's which seem to have that "web 1.0" kind of burn money being thrown at it - really has to be considered.

Human interface is going to be the next big development in the OS field. This phone will have a screen but it may not be used for much other than watching videos, or single-instance data entry (phone numbers, for example). The OS in this phone may not just be the AI we're all unfortunately used to now, it may actually build the experience "on-the-fly". Like having a true personal assistant :"Make it so, Number One".

If thats the case, there's no need for an ecosystem at all. No need for apps to play music when you can say "play music that I like today", and the AI will build a music list from its perception of your attitude. No need for a contacts list when you can say something like "call the guy I spoke to last week about pressure washing the house". In fact there's no need for any kind of file manager or Finder when you can simply describe what you're looking for and the OS finds it. I think thats where everything is going. I don't like it but I can't stop "progress" any more than I can stand in front of a flood and block it.

I spoke here a few years back about a project Apple had on the front burner back in 2010-2011 that would have played well with this kind of thing. It was referred to as Project Magic, because it really would look like magic when the user implemented it. I didn't give out any details then because I was concerned that some Android folks might grab the idea and bring it back to Sauron, and now with AI scraping every forum and public square - and a lot of private ones as well - I'm doubly concerned that someone like Scam Altman and OpenSore could make use of the concept. I don't know what's happened with the project because we're several years past when the technology caught up to the concept.

Maybe they're waiting for Siri.

If OpenAi is planning on making an OS that’s available for a wide variety of OEM’s, then that would be a big part of what helped Windows. They’re currently saying it’s going to be a phone and not an OS. And, until I hear otherwise, I’m hearing “Android based phone”.

Apple has and will likely always have smaller marketplace numbers than Android. Because of that, they never have to “own the market” to be profitable. They just have to sell 2 or 3 hundred million iPhones (out of the 1.2 to 1.5 billion total) worldwide and ensure there are services available that customers want to pay for and this poses no challenge to Apple. It could pose a challenge to Android if it uses a non-Android OS, OR if it uses an Android based OS but provides a model that goes against Google’s current “closed” direction.

With everything they know about millions of consumers already, I guessing they should be in a pretty good position to have information on what will meet with some degree of success. Whether they’re able to turn that into a product is another thing entirely. 🙂

 

[Unregistered 4U]

It is literally going to be another Android phone. That’s what it always is. Anything else and it is a guaranteed fail, instead of a high probability fail.

We’re stuck with Android and Apple NOT because they are both perfect and customers don’t want anything else. And not because they’re preventing anyone from entering the market. It’s because no one has the confidence in their hardware to design their own software for it.

The EU could put their greatest tech minds… oh, wait, they’ve all left the country due to regulators. Nevermind.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

So you get to pay for their phone and a monthly subscription to make sure the ai, which is its main reason for existing, continues to work? Even though this is just a data mining operation, why doesnt anyone use AI to do the thing people need, go through their entire email or photo collections and organize them? Oh wait, you wont need to pay every month for that once it's done. So they aren't in the business of helping people, just data harvesting.

There are millions already paying for a monthly subscription to OpenAI. There are companies out there that would like to roll out AI to a bunch of their employees. Combine the two into one subscription, that’s something a few companies would be happy to sign up for, especially if it saves them on token use. They’re getting their AI fix, OpenAI is making money with phone subscriptions profit sharing with the carriers, there’s actual potential for it to be a win/win because OpenAI has something millions want.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Good luck !! I don’t think they realize how complicated it is to manufacture a phone.

They asked ChatGPT if they could make a phone and it said yes. That’s all they needed. 🙂

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Agent will be the killer feature. If Apple can nail an agent - they're ok. If they can't, the gloss and shine from Ive with a 'do-it-all buddy in your pocket' may win people over. The one thing that will impact this overall is OpenAI's relationship with Palantir and the US Gov, and how public that becomes. I do believe that gives people (general public) the ick, and there's no coming back from that.

Even if Apple can’t nail an agent, there’s still more people interested in the iPhone as a phone than as an AI delivery device.