When I think of OpenAI hardware I can't help but think of Akins Laws of Spacecraft Design [0]:
> 39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.
Having a Jony Ive project on the side isn't going to do squat for OpenAI—if they're going to go into consumer hardware that's going to need to be an all-consuming strategic pivot, which their other moves suggest they're not doing. They're currently in spaghetti at the wall mode with Jony Ive as just one bet among many, which is a very bad way to approach a new piece of consumer hardware that's meant to compete with Apple.
> if they're going to go into consumer hardware that's going to need to be an all-consuming strategic pivot
You have to build a phone.
There is no other way to get the data you need to make XR glasses, AI pebble, Rabbit etc work the way people expect without it. Because Apple and Google are well within the rights to deny the siphoning of your private data to a company like OpenAI who only exists because of large scale trademark abuse.
This is the cost of having a major mobile operating system completely closed, and the other one only half welcoming. We're missing on an unfathomable amount of innovation because of it.
That's where Samsung went all in on building it's own ecosystem.
But the point is that you're going to have a hard time bootstrapping a new phone ecosystem in the current environment. If it's mission critical then they need to be throwing everything at it, not doing it as one option among many.
I agree whole heartedly that it’s going to be really hard to get my iPhone out of my hands, for a host of reasons. That said, would I replace my AirPods with a Bluetooth version that has zero latency 4o, cameras on the stems and Chat over Siri? Um, yes, in a nanosecond. If that AirPod replacement needed a small brick with cellular backhaul that lived in my bag, and could make calls for me, would I use it? Yep, some of the time.
I think there’s a lot of space for device innovation right now. A quick survey of sci-fi ideas yields a lot of possibilities:
Lapel pins that talk to you
Earrings / Earcuffs that talk to you
Directed environmental audio that only you can hear
Drones that attach to you, fly around when you or they want, and then .. talk to you
Projection on arbitrary surfaces
Smart surfaces everywhere that show things
Anyway. We’re not done innovating data and compute connectivity in device form in my opinion. And, I think we would both do well to remember that how hard it is to sell me, or you, on a new phone, is massively different if you’re willing to give away your first 100mm phones.
That said I’m not convinced the next thing they’re putting out is a phone. But it might be a phone killer, or a baby thing that will one day be a phone killer.
Interestingly, isn't that almost exactly what Garmin has done with their wearable ecosystem? A massive data collection people willingly agree to because of the perceived benefits.
Garmin was a long-standing well-respected consumer hardware company that started releasing a miniaturized version of the thing they were famous for: a GPS. They already had brand recognition and all the infrastructure to build quality products that people would trust.
That infrastructure and brand is extremely difficult to bootstrap.
> 39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.
Having a Jony Ive project on the side isn't going to do squat for OpenAI—if they're going to go into consumer hardware that's going to need to be an all-consuming strategic pivot, which their other moves suggest they're not doing. They're currently in spaghetti at the wall mode with Jony Ive as just one bet among many, which is a very bad way to approach a new piece of consumer hardware that's meant to compete with Apple.
[0] https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html