Alarm bells for Apple

For years, Apple has been on a steady march, with a legacy of groundbreaking products like the iPhone casting a long shadow of success.

However, a sense of sluggishness seems to have pervaded the Cupertino-based company. Despite continued revenue and a large user base, the spark of fundamental innovation seems to have dimmed.

The AI device development venture of former Apple design chief Jony Ive and Sam Altman has officially launched through an acquisition worth around $6.5 billion . That should be a big wake-up call for the company, even if it doesn’t spell immediate doom.

Notable Signals

News that Ive, the design mind behind many of Apple's most iconic products, is teaming up with Sam Altman's OpenAI has sent shockwaves through the tech world .

Before that, Ive’s departure from Apple in 2019 was a pivotal moment. During his 27 years at the company, he was the architect of the minimalist aesthetic of its devices. His elegant designs influenced everything from the shape of its TVs to the look of its humble water bottle.

The partnership between Ive and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has been described as a “dream” deal. According to the New York Times , the all-stock acquisition, which unites Silicon Valley’s top tech figures, aims to usher in “a new generation of products” for AGI (artificial general intelligence), a term for a future technology that reaches human-level intelligence.

Jony Ive (left) and Tim Cook at Steve Jobs Theater, Apple Park, Cuppertino in 2018. Photo: New York Times.

Apple should pay special attention to this partnership, because while other tech giants are aggressively pushing AI, its advances seem to be only incremental improvements.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2025 is just two weeks away, but most sources believe the event will be about software improvements, rather than any major leaps in AI.

This focus on the familiar, while comforting to current users, risks leaving Apple behind as AI increasingly becomes the technology that shapes future devices and user experiences.

Why didn't Apple buy Ive's company?

Some have questioned whether there is a scenario where Apple, rather than OpenAI, would acquire Ive’s company. As Bloomberg ’s Mark Gurman notes, this is unlikely given Apple’s history of making few major acquisitions under Tim Cook.

The iPhone maker tends to be reluctant to spend big money, rarely going above $3 billion for an acquisition, especially for a company that hasn't released any tangible products.

Furthermore, the fact that many of the designers and engineers at io Products, Jony Ive’s AI device development company, are former Apple employees could create an awkward situation. While Ive’s return could be reminiscent of Steve Jobs’ return after the NeXT acquisition, it remains a remote possibility for both parties.

Ive and Altman also envisioned the device becoming an everyday necessity in people’s lives. Not a pair of bulky smart glasses, but a smart, compact, and convenient companion device that could be placed on a desk or easily slipped into a pocket.

Rendering based on Ming Chi Kuo's predictions about OpenAI and Jony Ive's AI device. Photo: Ben Geskin.

However, the reality is that since 2024, the market has experienced a wave of personal AI devices that have the ambition to replace smartphones. But most of them have failed.

The most notable is the Humane Ai Pin. This device allows access to AI chatbots when connected to the Internet, but it can barely perform the tasks that traditional smartphones do so well. Humane eventually had to sell all of its assets to HP. Another example is the Rabbit R1.

The device promised to deliver a cutting-edge AI experience, but ended up being more of a fancy tech toy than a truly useful tool.

The Ive-Altman deal isn't necessarily a fatal blow to Apple. The iPhone isn't going away overnight, and the first devices from the new partnership are unlikely to directly compete with it.

But it’s an undeniable warning. The landscape is changing rapidly, with AI poised to be as transformative as multi-touch screens were years ago. Apple needs to present a bolder vision for the future, moving beyond iterative updates and embracing the AI revolution.

Source: https://znews.vn/hoi-chuong-bao-dong-cho-apple-post1555814.html