Technologies

iPhone Designer Jony Ive Is Reportedly Running Into Snags With AI Project

The famed Apple designer is apparently working on a physical AI accessory.

Jony Ive, designer of the iPhone and iPod, is working on a new product with OpenAI but is running into technical challenges, according to a report from the Financial Times on Sunday.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

According to the FT report, the product is a screenless, palm-size device that takes in audio and visual information and responds to requests. However, OpenAI doesn’t have the size or scale of Amazon or Google, and it can barely handle the computing resources necessary for ChatGPT users.

For customers to have a bespoke AI device, a lot more processing power would be required. That could be why OpenAI entered a multibillion-dollar data center partnership with AMD on Monday . Company CEO Sam Altman praised the deal on X in a post, saying, «The world needs much more compute.»

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Another challenge has been tuning the device to be nonintrusive. It has trouble knowing when to finish a conversation, a known issue with ChatGPT. The team is trying to ensure the device isn’t sycophantic or too eager to agree with everything the user says.

A representative for OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

With the popularity of AI chatbots, more companies are aiming to extend the AI experience beyond the phone or desktop and into the outside world.

Last year, the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin were marketed as multimodal AI devices separate from your smartphone, taking in surrounding information and controlled mostly by voice. Both devices failed to impress, although the Rabbit R1 did receive a major update last month.

Meta has invested heavily in AI-powered wearables with its Ray-Ban and Ray-Ban Display glasses, with sales for the Meta Ray-Ban tripling this past year.

According to a report from Grand View Research, the wearable AI market is expected to grow to be worth $165 billion by 2030.

OpenAI acquired Ive’s design company, io, in May for $6.5 billion.

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Apple’s New Smart Home Display Delayed Until Fall Over Siri Issues

It has been nearly a year and a half since the company announced the AI-powered product.

Your home could get smarter with Apple’s Siri, but it will have to wait a few more months. Bloomberg reported the iPad-shaped AI home hub won’t be ready until September, several months after the company was hoping to launch it this spring. Apple engineers first need to complete work on a new and improved Siri assistant for the home device, code-named J490, according to Bloomberg.

Apple was hoping to release J490 this month, along with a slew of other new devices, including the iPhone 17e, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air M5, new Pro models, and iPad Air M4. Apple first teased the smart home display in November 2024.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that uses voice recognition and AI to fulfill a variety of tasks and commands, along with intriguing uses. You might use Siri to find your iPhone — «Hey Siri, where are you?» — or to hear the weather forecast — «Siri, what will the weather be today?» Siri is available on iPhones, MacBooks and iPads. It was launched in 2011 as a feature of the iPhone 4S.

As CNET reported last month, Apple engineers have struggled to push the upgraded Siri assistant out the door. It isn’t fast enough, gets confused by complex commands and doesn’t interact well with other Apple AI models. The company is also wrestling with how much personal data to access to inform the AI, and the new Siri is not yet able to complete in-app tasks, such as finding a photo and posting it to socials, all with one command.

It has been nearly two years since Apple announced that it would give Siri a major upgrade. In the meantime, competitors like Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home have entered the marketplace.

Tech tester Jon Rettinger, whose YouTube channel has 1.66 million subscribers, says the repeated delays in upgrading Siri can «erode» confidence in Apple’s ability to keep up in the AI race.

«Apple as a whole is still one of the strongest companies on the planet. But their AI play is clearly the weakest link in an otherwise very strong chain,» Rettinger told CNET.

Rettinger said he has had issues getting Siri to complete basic commands, such as setting two alarms at the same time, and that it’s a bit of «a mess» right now.

«Having said that, the iPhone has such massive market penetration that I’m not sure it will actually matter in the end. Which is kind of wild when you think about it,» Rettinger said.

Facial recognition for residents

The hardware for the forthcoming smart home display has already been finished. It resembles an iPad and can be either attached to a wall or rest on a half-domed-shaped base, the Bloomberg report said.

The device will be equipped with facial recognition, so when residents walk up to it, they will be shown personalized data such as music preferences, news headlines, appointments, reminders, tasks and so on.

The screen interface will include a bunch of circular app icons, similar to the display on an Apple Watch. The Bloomberg report said the smart home display will be the first of several home devices by Apple. Future products include a tabletop robotic limb with a 9-inch screen, a smart security camera and a Face ID-enabled smart doorbell.