The AI Device Wars Just Kicked Off In A Big Way
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Google Glass
11 min read
The article mentions Google as 'the originator of Google Glass' but doesn't explain its history. Understanding the rise and fall of this pioneering AR wearable provides crucial context for why the current AI device race is so high-stakes and why companies are cautious about form factors.
-
Jony Ive
16 min read
The article references Sam Altman partnering with 'legendary ex-Apple designer Jony Ive' on OpenAI's device. Ive's design philosophy and his transformative work at Apple (iPod, iPhone, Apple Watch) provides essential context for understanding what he might bring to AI hardware.
In a vacuum, the latest Apple executive departures were of little note. Apple user interface design leader Alan Dye and a deputy decamped for Meta this week, and longtime Apple watchers greeted the moves warmly. Dye, the guy behind Apple’s controversial ‘Liquid Glass’ operating system, was reportedly better at corporate politics than design, and his departure is set to make room for fresh sensibilities within the tech giant.
But zoom out a bit, and Dye’s move to Meta might well be the start of the great AI device wars, which appear ready to explode. Meta is going to put Dye on its AI wearables projects, bringing his Apple know-how to the Ray-Ban Meta and Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the latter of which contains a screen in its lens. With Amazon, Google, and OpenAI also working on their own AI hardware, the race to create the device of the future is getting underway with urgency.
“We’re at a historic inflection point where the AI devices we’re building are poised to fundamentally reshape the way we interact with technology,” Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth said in a post announcing Dye’s hiring. “Excited to see what this team can do.”
For Meta and Apple, the fight is personal. Meta’s leadership has long hated working through operating systems like Apple’s iOS to reach their users. And Apple has used its power to cause the company serious problems, breaking Meta’s ad targeting and even shutting down its internal apps at one point. Meta’s been so determined to get ahead of the next computing shift that it bet massively (and wrongly) on virtual reality and the Metaverse. But AI-powered wearables are showing more promise, with sales of smartglasses tripling this year, and Meta is out ahead.
Apple understands the stakes. While an AI device likely won’t replace the iPhone, the category could be an area of significant growth over time. So Apple has been working on a smartglasses product of its own — once again following Meta, as it did with the Vision Pro — and it’s aiming to release it sometime next year. Apple’s AI device will only be as good as the assistant inside, however. And if it’s the same Siri that exists today, it won’t matter how nice the wearable looks and feels, it will disappoint.
Given how crucial a good AI model is to any AI device’s success,
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.