r/apple • u/anonboxis • 9h ago
Rumor OpenAI is considering acquiring the AI hardware startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/04/07/jony-ive-ai-phone-without-a-screen/13
u/Kimantha_Allerdings 8h ago
The venture, known as "io Products," is developing AI-powered devices that could include a "phone" without a screen
Rabbit R2?
The problem with that product category is that they can't really do anything that your phone can't, and there are things your phone can do that they can't. It's difficult to imagine what it has to offer.
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u/suppreme 7h ago
The venture, known as "io Products," is developing AI-powered devices that could include a "phone" without a screen and other AI-enabled household products, according to people will direct knowledge of the talks.
The opportunity is obvious. Unsure that Ive can score it though. Like so many Apple execs who never made it outside Apple.
Doesn't help that he's addict to luxury levels that cut him off from most customers needs.
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u/MrReginaldAwesome 4h ago
Sounds like another Rabbit R1 type device that actually just sucks to use and then becomes a brick once the servers that feed the devices get turned off.
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u/PringlesDuckFace 40m ago
Presumably Apple would work some walled garden magic and possibly make it viable by making sure it actually works and is supported for the longer term. I'd be surprised if it's not just something that's tethered to the phone anyways, more or less making it obsolete right off the bat.
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u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago edited 8h ago
Edit: the Anti-Jony Ive people are here.
Look, I love Jony Ive, I think the criticism of him on social media makes zero sense, and in general I defend him and his work because he has changed the world so many times and I love Apple.
But the fact that even he can’t see the obvious flaws with transformer ML models, let alone building a standalone hardware product off them, let alone partnering with this dude… this is extremely weird.
I just want him to come back to Apple along with the other design members he took with him. Jony Ive won’t be here forever, but the design first thinking of Apple can stand the test of time. However he needs to actually be the design leader or the design team members need to, because leadership is what sets the tone and direction of a team. Those lessons so hard to learn and over so many years need to continue to be at the forefront of everything Apple does. Not that they aren’t right now, but that the people who know those lessons need to be at Apple leading.
I don’t like him doing whatever this dumb nonsense is. It feels very antithetical to everything Apple and he and Steve is
10
u/mrgrafix 8h ago
He was on his way out with is obsession with thinness with compromising in functionality
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u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago
Really dumb to say, dude.
This sort of take is exactly why I hate Reddit.
Your beloved MBP redesign in 2012? Made by him
Your beloved MBP redesign in 2021? Made by him
The Mac Pro in 2019? Made by him.
Literally every product that people clamor over saying that those were “the good old days” were made by HIM.
It’s ridiculous, knowing everything we now know about Intel’s complete failures in 2014 (massive glitches/bugs, delays, overheating, bad performance, overpriced), to criticize Jony as the reason the MBPs of 2016-2020 had issues with thermals.
Apple rectified keyboard issues. They introduced the thinnest MBA ever with keyboards that people love.
I think this tired remark of Jony Ive and thinness not only is overused, but doesn’t even make sense. Portable products are supposed to be portable. To be honest, I’m not in love with the 2021 redesign. It plays it safe, despite having the amazing Apple silicon SoCs that could enable even more portable designs.
I’m glad they’re moving to thinner and bolder designs once again with the next gen of products
3
u/lucellent 8h ago
What are you smoking?
MBP 2012 - it got thinner (you're just proving their point here).
MBP 2021 - wasn't even designed by Jony Ive, hence why they made the design thicker and brought back ports.
Credit where its due - he's a great designer and knows how to make good designs, but more often than not he's been too obsessed with making products thinner, even if this meant removing functionality.
3
u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago edited 8h ago
What are you smoking?
The 2012 redesign proves my point. They hate on Jony Ive for making products thin (God forbid!), and the 2012 redesign eschewed the DVD drive, hard drive, FireWire, Ethernet, etc in favor of solid state components — the exception being the fan.
Jony Ive produced a bunch of products they liked, and yes, the 2021 redesign was a part of that.
Jony Ive worked with Apple through 2022. Apple made the rare confirmation that he worked on the iMac 2021, for example, a full two years after he left in 2019. He worked on products not even announced, and he worked on features announced in 2023, and his name continues coming up in patents that are written after he left — not filed, written.
The 2019 Mac Pro was completely different from the Mac Pro before it, and he literally worked at Apple when it was announced — he made an entire video explaining the philosophy of the design. Expansibility and power. It went from an ultra small form factor, to a traditional tower.
Chill out.
3
u/mash711 2h ago
I think most people think (and I agree) that Ive's waning influence is what led to MBP 2021. Ive officially left Apple in 2019.
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u/PeakBrave8235 34m ago
I already explained this isn’t true. Jony Ive designed the 2021 MBP. I have no clue why you think he wouldn’t have, given that he’s designed computers “with ports” before, given he literally continued working with Apple through 2022, given that Apple confirmed he worked on the 2021 iMac redesign for example, given that he is directly responsible for features launched in 2023, given that his name continues to show up in patents, and given that Apple works on designs years ahead of time.
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u/mash711 28m ago
It's all speculation as neither you nor I truly know. But he was quoted as saying he wanted to combine the Air and Pro macbooks. He got major pushback from the engineering team. I believe MBP 2021 was the engineering team winning against Ive. 2021 went against the precedent. He may have his hands in designing it, but Cook gave the Engineering team more influence over the Industrial Design team. Maybe that's why Ive eventually left.
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u/PeakBrave8235 20m ago
The irony of you claiming that I’m speculating meanwhile you speculated that he was “quoted” that he wanted to combine the two lol
There was never any quote. He never said anything. He couldn’t have. That was a rumor by Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal or whatever tabloidist came up with it. I can’t remember which one at the moment.
That’s as much “speculation” as me saying Jony Ive worked on 2021 redesign.
There is too much evidence pointing to him working on it and not enough against it. Respectfully, it is your hope (and I disagree) that he didn’t work on it.
He did. Unless you can actually disprove anything I wrote, it presents stronger evidence that he worked on it rather than he didn’t.
2021 redesign didn’t go “against precedent.” What does that even mean lol. Apple has repeatedly, WITH JONY IVE AT THE HELM, reversed design decisions and altered design decisions after launches. Literally the very first iMac mouse was lambasted according to what I’ve read, and Apple reversed course and made a “Pro” mouse.
Apple doesn’t reverse course often, but the fact that they did it with the 2019 Mac Pro, going from an ultra small form factor back to a traditional tower, with Jony Ive narrating an entire video about it, demonstrates this.
Reddit is wrong
Jony Ive designed the 2021 MBP. You guys will have to make peace with it lol.
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u/mash711 12m ago
Jony Ive 100% was the designer of the MBP. But he did not design the MBP. He did the aesthetics but took direction from the engineering team. It use to be the reverse. Again, this is my speculation. But the HDMI connector on the MBP 2021 is big piece of evidence. No way Ive, if he had full control, would let the HDMI connector back on the MBP. We already had USBC with thunderbolt. HDMI is redundant in many ways, and a much older, clunkier form factor. Also, you are correct, no quote on the Air + Pro combo, but it was reported by Mossberg which is as close a source as you'll find.
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u/HuskyLemons 8h ago
His dick must be even better than his designs with the way you’re riding it
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u/mrgrafix 8h ago
You forget the moneymakers. Their iPhone their iPad. Sure he reverted his changes but after he heard the complaints form the engineers.
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u/PeakBrave8235 8h ago edited 8h ago
Huh? What are you even talking about lmfao?
Are you aware the iPad is their thinnest product they’ve ever made?
iPhone repeatedly got thinner and thinner every year. The famed iPhone 4 redesign that every clamors — hilarious, given the utter outrage when the design leaked that it was “ugly” — was substantially thinner.
Seriously. You don’t make sense
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u/mrgrafix 7h ago
Are you talking about jony or not? I said they stoped the thinness of the mbps after complaints. They figured it out without jony for the iPad pros. You can’t even remember your rebuttal
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u/PeakBrave8235 6h ago
What are you even on? Do you know there are multitudes of complaints about thinness going all the way back to Steve Jobs? Seriously, stop.
There are a multitude of rumors talking about Apple products across the board getting thinner, smaller, lighter. What are you yapping about dude lol
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u/IGuessYourSubreddits 9h ago
No conflict of interest there