Last month, OpenAI announced acquiring Jony Ive's startup, io, in a $6.5 billion deal. Ive, who served as Apple's design chief for over two decades, moved to OpenAI to work on the company's AI hardware projects.
While the details of these projects have remained relatively untold, Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter revealed some exciting insights about Jony Ive's work at OpenAI. According to Gurman, Apple's former design chief is now spearheading a series of groundbreaking AI hardware products for OpenAI.
One of these under-development devices is described as a "mobile gadget" that takes the form of a "pendant" and can be worn around the neck. This device could allegedly allow users to access ChatGPT with voice commands.
Another of Ive's works at OpenAI is a home device that functions similarly to a smart speaker. Users can put the device on a table and perform various tasks using OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Interestingly, OpenAI also has a robot device under development. As Gurman says, this robot "will likely be a machine that develops a relationship with a human using AI." However, OpenAI's robot is still far from being made available on the market.
After acquiring Jony Ive's startup, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described Ive as the best designer in the world, adding that they can now work on the next generation of AI-powered computers. More details about OpenAI-Ive hardware products could emerge over the next few months.
OpenAI was already rumored to be working on a mysterious AI gadget, presumably a screenless AI phone, which might be the same mobile gadget that Gurman revealed.
While details of this alleged AI mobile are yet unknown, such a device could pose an alternative to conventional smartphones, raising the alarm for smartphone makers such as Apple, Samsung, and Google.
Meanwhile, Apple might already be expecting such a device, as its services chief Eddy Cue allegedly said during his testimony at Google's antitrust case that iPhones might no longer exist 10 years from now.
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