Jony Ive's iPhone design changed the world. Can he do it again with OpenAI?

Jony Ive created the look and feel of the iPhone, perhaps the most culture-changing device of the 21st century. And now, the "greatest designer in the world," as described by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is joining the artificial intelligence company, hoping to create another transformative piece of personal technology.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has led the "rapid advances" of AI in recent years, but "developing new hardware based around it has proved more of a challenge," said BBC News. Some devices — like the AI Pin, a brooch that could answer questions and take photos — have flopped. Ive and Altman want to change that. The new partnership offers the opportunity to "completely reimagine what it means to use a computer," Altman said.

iPhone killer?

The partnership with Ive makes OpenAI's ambitions "crystal clear," said Matteo Wong at The Atlantic. Altman believes that computers and smartphones are "clunky" ways to use AI products. The goal is to create new devices that seamlessly integrate AI into a user's life and go "beyond these legacy products," Altman said. Right now the company is short on actual details, Wong said. Instead, Altman is "marketing his imagination."

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OpenAI is making a "long-shot bid to kill the iPhone," said Dave Lee at Bloomberg. Beating Apple is the real goal of the "formidable new Silicon Valley bromance" between Altman and Ive. (Indeed, Apple stock sank 2% after the announcement.) The challenge is that building a "breakthrough device" that has the same impact as the iPhone is a "tall order." Consumers will have to be convinced that an AI device "brings functionality far superior to what they can summon with the smartphone already in their pocket." Having Ive on board "counts for plenty" in achieving that goal, but most likely not enough."

Ive has a "few regrets" about how the iPhone created a generation of screen addicts, Kyle Barr said at Gizmodo. "Some of the products" he designed have had "some unintended consequences that were far from pleasant," Ive recently said to an interviewer. But AI has numerous well-documented problems of its own, Barr said. This means the famed designer probably "can't save us from the iPhone addiction he helped create."

Weaning users from their screens

Altman and Ive have "offered a few hints" about their plans to OpenAI staff, said The Wall Street Journal. Their imagined device would be "fully aware of a user's surroundings and life" but also unobtrusively "rest in one's pocket or on one's desk." It will not be another phone or smart glasses. Instead, the ultimate aim is to "help wean users from screens."

Building hardware is "really hard," said Yoni Heisler at BGR. And smartphones are now so advanced that replacing them will be an "uphill battle from the outset." Until Ive and Altman unveil an actual device, there is "no reason to assume that Apple needs to be shaking in its boots."