„AI Age Brings The Biggest Acquihire“
Das Video war ein „vibes teaser“, bei dem wichtiger war was nicht gesagt wurde.
The word around hardware circles has been that Ive’s team has been hiring a lot of talented engineers, including experts in firmware and embedded systems. And if you watch the video, you can see Altman and Ive painstakingly avoided mentioning that they are building a phone. Altman gave the example of using ChatGPT by getting on a laptop and a web browser. “And I would hit enter, and I would wait, and I would get a response,” Altman quips. “And that is at the limit of what the current tool of a laptop can do.” Laptop in 2025? You are kidding me.
The only reason you don’t mention a device that is a default for most people — the smartphone — is because you are building one. Don’t be surprised if they launch a new phone — a reimagined phone — to compete with not only Apple, but with Google’s Android. It could come with headphones, glasses or other accessories that allow you to tap into ChatGPT without typing.
Ebenso ohne Erwähnung: AirPods und Apple Watch.
“We’ve been waiting for the next big thing for 20 years,” Mr. Altman, 40, added. “We want to bring people something beyond the legacy products we’ve been using for so long.”
Mr. Altman and Mr. Ive are effectively looking beyond an era of smartphones, which have been people’s signature personal device since the iPhone debuted in 2007. If the two men succeed — and it is a very big if — they could spur what is known as “ambient computing.”
Mike Isaac | Cade Metz | The New York Times
Die Herausforderung bleibt, dass Kund:innen ihre Telefone, diese „legacy products“, lieben.
Ive und Altman arbeiten gleich an einer „family of devices“ – neuen Gerätekategorien, nach denen die gesamte Branche lechzt.
Ich würde mich jedoch nicht wundern, wenn wir den Formfaktor bereits kennen; traue aber den Alt-Apple-Angestellten eine bedeutende Differenzierung über Software zu.
Update:
Altman and Ive offered a few hints at the secret project they have been working on. The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and would be a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the device won’t be a phone, and that Ive and Altman’s intent is to help wean users off of screens. Altman said the device also isn’t a pair of glasses, and that Ive had been skeptical about building something to wear on the body. […]
The original plan was for Ive’s startup to build and sell its own device using OpenAI’s technology, but Altman said he eventually realized that wouldn’t work. Altman said he knew the two companies would have to be combined because the device wasn’t just an accessory but a central facet of the user relationship with OpenAI.
“We both got excited about the idea that, if you subscribed to ChatGPT, we should just mail you new computers, and you should use those,” Altman said.
Berber Jin | The Wall Street Journal