Jony Ive, the legendary designer behind the iconic design of the iPhone and many Apple devices, met with Sam Altman to develop a new AI device.
Jony Ive told The New York Times that he met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a restaurant in San Francisco, arranged by Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb and a close friend of Altman. The meeting took place last year but is only now being made public.
During the meeting, Altman and Ive discussed how to create a new AI computing device, agreeing that this technology could do much more for users than traditional software, such as summarizing and prioritizing messages, or handling complex requests like booking travel tickets.
To date, the project has raised a certain amount of money, primarily from contributions by Ive and Emerson Collective, the company owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The project aims to raise $1 billion from technology investors by the end of the year.
Jony Ive at an Apple event in June 2019. Photo: Macrumors.
In addition, Ive has already laid the groundwork for the new project and has begun recruiting staff. In February, he spent more than $60 million on a roughly 3,000-square-meter building called Little Fox Theater, located near the headquarters of his company LoveFrom, and hired about 10 people.
The project is being developed in secret. The parties involved have not yet revealed what the product will be or when it will be released. According to predictions from PhoneArena based on shared information, Ive and Altman may be aiming for a “super AI” device designed to revolutionize software, with the ability to access any part of the operating system, freeing users from manual control.
The new device might even use cameras, sensors, and microphones to understand context. For example, when mentioning calling someone, just picking up the device might automatically initiate the call. Or, the device could track when the user is about to go out and automatically book a taxi. This is similar to what AI devices like the Humane AI Pin or Rabbit R1 are aiming for, but Ive’s device could do it better.
However, PhoneArena also suggested that the new device might face some hurdles, such as concerns about privacy and resistance from people who don’t want digital devices intervening too much in their lives.
“Ive once turned an oversized device like the iPad into a popular and beloved product. So, he probably knows what needs to be done, and we can expect a revolutionary product in a few years,” the site wrote.
Jony Ive is considered a design genius, having played a key role in designing numerous iconic Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. He left Apple in 2019 after nearly three decades of work.
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