The former Apple designer built a new product to kill the iPhone

The result of five years of sharpening a sword by a former Apple designer was officially released today - a small box Ai Pin with a large built-in GPT model, no screen, and can be pinned to clothes.

This delicately shaped, fruity device is also special to use. The most sci-fi part is the monochrome projector above, which, according to the demo video, can turn the user's palm into a mini screen, relying on voice, pinching fingers, and moving the palm of the hand to interact. It can make calls, text messages, take photos and videos, and let AI help generate text, translate in real-time, and even count calories from food...

It turns out that AI has not only created a hype frenzy in the stock market, but also brought new ways of interacting. Humane, the company that makes the Ai Pin, has called the device "the first wearable AI hardware," and Humane has a much bigger ambition — to kill the phone.

At least in terms of price, the Ai Pin is not much worse than the phone. It costs $699 (the iPhone 15 starts at $799) and also requires a $24 monthly subscription. Pre-orders will begin on November 16 (next Thursday), and ships will be made early next year, and will only be available in the U.S. for the time being.

A key step in the commercialization of AI

According to the initial feedback from the media, Ai Pin seems to be pretty good to use.

In terms of hardware configuration, the Ai Pin is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and also has a 12-million-pixel ultra-wide-angle lens with a fixed focal length. According to media reports, the photos taken under indoor lights look very clear.

In addition to showcasing the app interface, the monochrome projector can also display text messages, users can scroll through with pinching gestures with the same hand, and even show a basic preview of a photo.

At first glance, the Ai Pin doesn't seem to be as exciting as the iPhone of the year. However, for practitioners in the AI industry, it represents the first step in the "hardware of AI".

In the five years since its founding, Humane has raised more than $240 million in funding, with investments from Microsoft, OpenAI, Tiger Global and other companies. At the time it hadn't released any products, it was already valued at $850 million.

Access to the GPT-4 model is the core function of AI Pin.

In May of this year, Humane trademarked the phrase "Catch me up" (tell me what's going on).

As soon as the user says the phrase, the AI assistant will combine the latest information from emails, text messages, and events to generate a summary. In addition, Ai Pin can also use the collected user data and environmental cues to address questions such as "Is this lunch in line with my eating habits?" Or, "Is this a good gift for my niece?" and other complex questions.

The boundaries between apps have been opened, and there is no need to install 5 more apps to manage schedules, as long as you talk to AI. That's probably why Humane has attracted Popular Investors like Sam Altman.

Some investors told the media that when they first saw this product in October last year, they felt that the hardware was one thing, but Ai Pin's multi-modal input system can generate accurate answers with simple instructions, which is its core advantage.

In addition, the patents submitted by the company in the past five years also vaguely reveal the direction of development that the management wants to try.

For example, the Apple Watch's dominant health function, according to the relevant patent, Humane's future products may be able to track the user's biometric data (such as heart rate, body temperature, and sweat level) to assess the user's emotional state and guess the importance of the scene in front of them, using this information, the Ai Pin can independently decide when to turn on the camera and microphone.

However, the original Ai Pin didn't even have the function of a pedometer. It is still unclear whether the ideas in the patent will be realized.

In an interview with the media, CEO Bethany Bongiorno said that the first batch of the original Ai Pin was 100,000 units:

"Just like every hardware startup, we want to make sure we have a conservative plan for all situations."

However, she also said that the number of people who have registered and expressed their intention to buy has exceeded 110,000, but this number is more an indication of people's curiosity than the actual purchase plan, after all, no deposit is required to register.

Nearly half of the team was born in Apple

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco, Humane is founded by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, former Apple executives who are also husband and wife.

Imran was the director of user interface design at Apple and was deeply involved in the design of the home screen of the iPhone, while Bethany was the director of software engineering at Apple and was responsible for the development of iOS and MacOS.

In addition, the company's CTO Patrick Gates is also Apple's former senior director of engineering, and more than 90 of Humane's more than 200 employees are from Apple, including those who were responsible for the design of the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard, Apple's industrial elements, and those involved in the development of Apple's service infrastructure such as iCloud, Apple Pay and Home.

Bethany Bongiorno on the left, Imran Chaudhri on the right

Why is Humane able to attract so many former Apple employees? A former employee of Humane told the media that in 2011, the death of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, made the passion of many people working at Apple also fade. Many of those who left Apple to join Humane are eager to return to a founder-led company.

Another former Apple executive who joined Humane said that after leaving Apple, he actually planned to retire, and part of the reason he joined Humane was to atone for his sins. Disgusted by the impact of the iPhone on society, he endorses Humane's vision of ending the tyranny of the screen and bringing face-to-face communication back to life, believing that a new computing terminal can help him get rid of the guilt of working for Apple.

Replacing smartphones, is it possible?

Humane's two founders believe that AI can create an experience that takes a back seat to mobile phones, and their mission is to free the world from the addiction to smartphones — Apple has made screens ubiquitous, while Humane vows to make consumers less dependent on screens, end the tyranny of screens, and bring face-to-face communication back.

At the press conference, Imran Chaudhri, President of the company, said:

"The last era has passed, and smartphones are 16 years old."

This may be a mockery of Apple, which released the original iPhone exactly 16 years ago.

What about the XR headset that many companies, including Apple, are betting on? Humane was mocking of this.

At a TED talk in April, Chaudhri showed a photo of a child wearing a VR headset.

He shook his head and said:

"The future is not in your face."

The headset in the photo looks very similar to the Vision Pro, which Apple released two months later — a project that Chaudhri probably knew about as an Apple executive.

Humane's goal is to replicate the usefulness of the iPhone without being addictive — the dopamine rush from social media or TikTok videos is, according to Humane's founders, the root cause of the global epidemic of loneliness, declining physical and mental health, and reduced attention spans.

Even Humane employees, who wear the Ai Pin all day, can't get rid of their screens completely, though. Even within the company, there are doubts that the founder's vision can be realized, and that without screens, with more content, it won't be able to keep users addicted, and obviously Humane will not be able to make money from advertising revenue, and only rely on hardware and subscription sales to make money, will the company grow?

More critically, will consumers pay for boring devices that don't have screens and are good for their physical and mental health? A former Humane employee told the media:

"I personally doubt how much people really want that, because people want their TikTok."

However, according to people familiar with the matter, the first product, Ai Pin, is not the focus, and Humane hopes to achieve a complete paradigm shift in the field of consumer computing. The company's current cooperation with manufacturers includes Volvo, LG and other companies, which may mean that Humane may move closer to the Internet of Things in the future and integrate its technology into home appliances and in-vehicle systems.

In addition, some analysts pointed out that Apple's original iPod was also a clumsy device with only one purpose for listening to music, but it laid the foundation for a real revolution - smartphones. Similarly, Humane envisions an ecosystem of features built by companies for their operating systems – an AI-powered version of the AppStore.

A former Humane employee told the media:

"Our vision is much more than just one device, it's about building a complete platform."

Siri is garbage now, but will it always be garbage?

There are still a lot of troubles ahead of Humane, and once other tech giants start to integrate AI into their hardware, will startups like Humane be able to withstand the onslaught of Apple, Google, and Amazon?

Apple's latest release, the Apple Watch 9, introduces a new feature that allows users to interact using gestures, almost in line with the interaction logic of the Ai Pin. There is also a recent media mention that Apple may start to integrate generative AI into the iPhone in iOS 18 in 2024.

A former Human employee told the media:

"Siri is garbage, and that's a lifesaver for Humane. But will it be garbage forever? In my opinion, with an AI version of Siri, the Apple Watch will significantly reduce the value proposition of Humane. ”