The west wind comes from the Wafei Temple
量子位 | 公众号 QbitAI
Another Apple executive was revealed to be joining OpenAI's first hardware device research and development project!
He is Tang Tan, Apple's vice president of product design, and has been involved in the product design of the iPhone and Apple Watch.
According to Bloomberg, Tang Tan is expected to leave his post in February next year and join LoveFrom, a company founded by Jony Ive, to be responsible for the research and development of OpenAI's hardware devices.
As early as September this year, it was reported that OpenAI CEO Altman and Apple's former chief design officer Jony Ive reached a cooperation to jointly develop a new mobile device.
The kind that can replace existing smartphones.
The project is said to have sought more than $1 billion in investment from SoftBank Masayoshi Son.
Jony Ive's name is even better, and he is known as the "man behind Jobs". Some say that while Steve Jobs designed Apple's strategy and future, Jony Ive is the one who decides every Apple product, including iPhone, iPod, iMac, etc.
In addition, he promoted the development of the Apple Watch, which is the only major new device that Apple has launched since Steve Jobs' death in 2011.
It is also reported that Ultraman has discussed with Jony Ive about the appearance of the new device, and it is likely that the shape and size of the previous smartphone will be changed, and the new device will not be limited by the rectangular screen.
After getting the news, netizens also used their imagination to their heart's content:
I predict that this device will be: round, hot to run, lacking intuitive touch, requiring an awkward charging position.
and this old brother is also very "humane......
(Ultraman previously invested in the startup Humane and launched an AI hardware AI Pin, which was complained that it was a combination of Google Glass and a pager.) ）
造OpenAI版iPhone中...
As mentioned at the beginning, the company that OpenAI will work with, called LoveFrom, was built by Jony Ive after he left Apple in 2019.
But Ive also left Apple with a three-year deal that would continue to provide consulting services to Apple.
It wasn't until last year that Ive and Apple negotiated again, and both sides agreed to stop working together and that Ive could develop products without restrictions in the future.
Ive also took more than 20 employees from Apple to join LoveFrom. No, Tang Tan is about to be in place.
In this collaboration with OpenAI, LoveFrom is responsible for the design, the software is provided by OpenAI, and the hardware may be supported by SoftBank.
In 2016, Son spent $32 billion to acquire a British chip design company, the famous ARM. In September this year, ARM was listed on the NASDAQ, and its stock price rose 25% on its first day of listing.
According to insiders, Ultraman and Ive hope to set up a new company to develop the new device.
But overall, product development is still in its early stages, with work focused on recruiting talent and creating concepts, with no deals yet confirmed and details surrounding the project being murky.
Why is Ultraman so obsessed with developing equipment?
It's not the first time Ultraman has been involved in building smart devices.
Not long ago, he also invested in the startup Humane (whose founders also worked at Apple) and launched a gadget called AI Pin.
It can do a lot of things that smartphones can do, from making phone calls, writing text messages, and organizing emails.
But soon after it was officially launched, it was questioned, and netizens said that "it is a combination of Google Glass and pager", no screen, no APP, and a camera.
And its price is not low, the official price is 699 US dollars, which is equivalent to about 5,000 yuan, which is about the same as a smartphone. Some features are also available with a subscription to be paid, and each monthly subscription costs an additional $24.
There are also slots such as privacy, some people even call it the "most hyped, the most meaningless, and the most unrealistic" hardware device they have seen recently.
The AI Pin has just passed, and now Ultraman is about to start building a new device.
So why is he so obsessed with developing devices?
An article in the New York Times pointed out that one of the reasons may be to avoid OpenAI's dependence on Apple or Google's Android system for distribution.
The examples of Facebook and Amazon are a case in point, with Apple and Google each taking a cut of the sales on their platforms. Moreover, Apple's restrictions on privacy have also reduced the sales of ads.
Reference Links:
[1]https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1739796431446176012
[2]https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23893939/jony-ive-openai-sam-altman-iphone-of-artificial-intelligence-device
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/technology/openai-apple-silicon-valley-supergroup-create-ai-device.html
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