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No question that Ive is a legend, but I do think the fall of Humane (also ex-Apple) and the challenges at Meta, Apple, and Google in terms of VR/AR adoption (Me

No question that Ive is a legend, but I do think the fall of Humane (also ex-Apple) and the challenges at Meta, Apple, and Google in terms of VR/AR adoption (Meta Ray Ban, Apple Vision, Google Glasses and the new thing) are instructive here. The $6.5B almost feels like the largest ever aquihire.

Handy-Man 1y ago
But Meta is thriving with Meta Ray Bans, they have sold over 2M as of few months back. (Yes I know that number seems small compared to other devices, but for a new form factor, that seems like a great early success)
- croes 1y ago
  Where is they AR/VR part in the Ray Bans? It’s cameras, speakers, microphones but no display.
  - codybontecou 1y ago
    I’m pretty sure the latest models have AR. I saw a presentation within the last year showcasing AR emoji-like things. Not that emojis are a killer feature, but the tech is there.
    - jazzyjackson 1y ago
      The glasses with a HUD are a different product line, latest ray bans are just camera mic and audio, but I still count them as AR because the AI voice in your ear can see what you see. I tried them for a few months and returned them, not a good enough camera to enjoy the hands free snapshots I was looking forward to, and just didn’t have a use for a q&a bot attached to my ear. For what they are I’ll give them props for a nicely designed product, the charging case is clever and works well. I liked them for music with the Apple Watch, pretty slick combination. Maybe if I could stomach giving a llama bot access to email and calendar etc etc to have a real personal assistant it would be an attractive offering in a world that accepts being watched 24/7 by AI/billionaire overlords
      - jrussino 1y ago
        > Maybe if I could stomach giving a llama bot access to email and calendar etc etc to have a real personal assistant it would be an attractive offering in a world that accepts being watched 24/7 by AI/billionaire overlords I share this general point of view but take it further: I really want something in this direction (a quality AI assistant that can access my communications and continuously see and hear what I do) but it MUST be local and fully controlled by me. I feel like Meta is getting closest to offering what I'm looking for but I would never in a million years trust them with any of my data. My wife has the first-gen raybans and they're great for taking photos and video clips of e.g. our kids' sporting events and concerts, where what it's replacing is a phone held up above the crowd getting in the way of the moment. But even with that I feel icky uploading those things to Meta's servers.
        butlike 1y ago
        Meta's fine. Or at least on par with all the other ones.
  - asadotzler 1y ago
    AR can surely be audio only. Or are you suggesting a blind person getting navigation instructions via cameras and speakers isn't augmenting their reality? If so, I violently disagree.
    - croes 1y ago
      And listening to Spotify is VR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
- ygjb 1y ago
  Meta Ray Bans and Googles Project Aura are products that I absolutely want, but absolutely don't want to buy them from either of those companies, or any company as invasive as they are. It's long past time for enhanced privacy regulation in the North American market because these products are going to be wildly invasive as people depend on them to mediate their experience with the world. I don't know what the right answer, and I am very much aware that building products like these that don't focus on monetizing user interaction and advertising would likely mean that they are priced out for lower income users, but I hope someone smarter than me can figure it out :S
  - bdangubic 1y ago
    Meta Ray Bans and Googles Project Aura are products that I absolutely want, but absolutely don't want to buy them from either of those companies, or any company as invasive as they are. This! So much this! If a product from these companies could make my life 1,000,000x better I would still be in “thanks but no thanks crowd”
  - theyinwhy 1y ago
    Aren't the Auras from Xreal?
    - yahoozoo 1y ago
      Yeah, it’s a collaboration.
- Eggpants 1y ago
  It take a special kind of person to think, yeah, I'll wear a live camera and microphone connected to Facebook...
robbomacrae 1y ago
To quote from the article regarding Humane and the Rabbit r1 personal assistant device: “Those were very poor products,” said Ive, 58. “There has been an absence of new ways of thinking expressed in products.”
- joshstrange 1y ago
  To quote myself: "Jony Ive made incredibly poor products his last years at Apple" - So his opinion of what constitutes a "poor product" is suspect (R1 and Humane were bad products but just because you can tell what is a bad product doesn't mean you can make a good one).
  - mattlondon 1y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. If they were so obviously bad at the time, how did they get to market?
    - breppp 1y ago
      That's a good question, VC pressure and hope for first mover advantage? The humane launch video features two founders that look like they were forced to participate by their hostage takers
    - bdangubic 1y ago
      lots of things “get to market” - pretty easy to get something to market
    - jm4 1y ago
      I don't know anything about Humane, but the Rabbit was a terrible product right from the start. It was viewed overwhelmingly negatively as soon as it was unveiled.
    - turnsout 1y ago
      It's widely understood that Jony was given carte blanche after Steve died, to keep him at Apple. Hence the gold Apple Watch.
amelius 1y ago
> No question that Ive is a legend Not sure why he deserves to be a legend, to be honest, but yes, he is a legend. He did a good job, but those small and minimalistic designs were only possible because of the efforts of entire teams of engineers, of which the public never heard anything.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  And many of those designs were made at Ive's behest, against the wishes of entire teams of engineers. I feel like we have his "courage" to blame for the Butterfly keyboard, terrible Mac thermals and the lack of ports on "Pro" computers.
  - trane_project 1y ago
    The thermals were all Intel’s fault. My 2019 MacBook from work is an oven. I can’t tell whether my smaller m4 max is turned on by touching it.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Your 2019 Macbook also uses a different chassis, designed by Jony Ive. Apple knew it throttled the chips they used but shipped it anyways, presumably because Ive liked his thinness even when it results in a bendgate. You'll note that Macbooks don't quite look the same after Ive left and his influence went away.
      - PantaloonFlames 1y ago
        I don’t actually know. Last MBP I had was circa 2017 or so. How are they different ?
        kshacker 1y ago
        Beefier. Bulkier. Quick google search says Intel 16" was 4.3 lbs whereas M4 16" is 4.7 lbs. Not a big difference you say but 1) it is going in the opposite direction where the newer product is bulkier and 2) imagine the years of thin-ness that would have been forced under a different regime.
arusahni 1y ago
This is the same dude who brought us the butterfly keyboard, so I'm anticipating a form-beating-function failure (if they actually ship something).
- izolate 1y ago
  It's also the same dude who brought us beloved products in Apple's lineup. It's almost a meme at this point to say that Jony Ive's genius needs a containing force like Steve Jobs. Perhaps Sam Altman can fill that role.
  - peaseagee 1y ago
    Altman can't fill that role for himself, I don't think he could do it for Ive...
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    Jobs, for all his faults, understood where aesthetic, functionality and user experience intersected extremely well. He got stuff wrong too, don’t get me wrong, but I have yet to see another CEO (heck any business person of note) with the same pattern of deep understanding of how those things intersected as well as he did
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      People say this while outright ignoring all the outright failures Jobs had because he DIDN'T have that understanding. The Lisa, the Newton, NeXT computers, trying to dump Pixar pretty much right before they made it big right as the tech was finally catching up to their ideas. The reality is Jobs got to roll the dice a bunch of times, and if you get to roll the dice a lot, you will have some wins. Looking only at the wins is not useful.
      - no_wizard 1y ago
        I don't have the time or space to write up a proper rebuttal, but I will suffice to say, after reading an incredible amount about not only Jobs, but Apple, NeXT, the Newton, Pixar, things about tech, especially early home computing, the man performed well above his peers with regards to where aesthetic, functionality and user experience intersected. Note, I am not talking about how he ran the businesses otherwise. He wasn't always right, as I said already, but he was far better than most at this. More importantly, he was far better at most at getting others to shave their vision down to the simplest of ideas. If you look at the competitors to Apple or NeXT during their respective eras, they were not very thoughtful in their deliberations. It doesn't mean every idea he had was successful either, but I'm speaking specifically to the fact he intersected the three points extremely well. At a certain point, someone is good enough at something its more than luck
npollock 1y ago
"The takeover of io will provide OpenAI with about 55 hardware engineers, software developers and manufacturing experts" 6.5B / 55 = $118 million per engineer not a cheap aquihire
- hinkley 1y ago
  Who now expect to be paid.
lallaolala 1y ago
[dead]
PokemonNoGo 1y ago
That's how I read the article and came to find your comments. AI bought a human.
fallinditch 1y ago
Agreed. It's hard to think of a new product category for smart devices ... unless maybe Smart HATS! OK folks so remember where you heard it first - ultra stylish head gear with flip-down visor screen anyone?
- Pxtl 1y ago
  Even as a joke that's still just a goofier version of smart glasses. There really is nothing new under the sun.
  - fallinditch 1y ago
    True, I guess they will innovate around devices and periferals that enable or facilitate AI powered activities, and hope to pioneer a new category of activity, and look damn cool at the same time.
- yahoozoo 1y ago
  Eye contacts that have a HUD could be cool. But that’s not really something you need someone like Ive for.
pzo 1y ago
Humane was very impressive product from hardware perspective and design but poor execution and software (partially because they don't own smartphone os like android/iOS). If similar hardware was: - released by apple or google and deeply integrated with android/iOS - embedded inside apple watch / pixel watch - embedded inside slim airpods case that could be wear as pendant - apple had siri as good as gemini and very good local STT to reduce latency - MCP clients got more adopted by integrated in smartphones AI assistants then it could be a hit. They lost because they shipped to early, without having big pockets for long game, without owning android OS / iOS and charged big price + subscription for this gadgets. I think google currently is the best positioned to pull seamless experience with pixel devices (smartphone, watch, buds, gemini)

Handy-Man 1y ago

But Meta is thriving with Meta Ray Bans, they have sold over 2M as of few months back. (Yes I know that number seems small compared to other devices, but for a new form factor, that seems like a great early success)

croes 1y ago
Where is they AR/VR part in the Ray Bans? It’s cameras, speakers, microphones but no display.
- codybontecou 1y ago
  I’m pretty sure the latest models have AR. I saw a presentation within the last year showcasing AR emoji-like things. Not that emojis are a killer feature, but the tech is there.
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    The glasses with a HUD are a different product line, latest ray bans are just camera mic and audio, but I still count them as AR because the AI voice in your ear can see what you see. I tried them for a few months and returned them, not a good enough camera to enjoy the hands free snapshots I was looking forward to, and just didn’t have a use for a q&a bot attached to my ear. For what they are I’ll give them props for a nicely designed product, the charging case is clever and works well. I liked them for music with the Apple Watch, pretty slick combination. Maybe if I could stomach giving a llama bot access to email and calendar etc etc to have a real personal assistant it would be an attractive offering in a world that accepts being watched 24/7 by AI/billionaire overlords
    - jrussino 1y ago
      > Maybe if I could stomach giving a llama bot access to email and calendar etc etc to have a real personal assistant it would be an attractive offering in a world that accepts being watched 24/7 by AI/billionaire overlords I share this general point of view but take it further: I really want something in this direction (a quality AI assistant that can access my communications and continuously see and hear what I do) but it MUST be local and fully controlled by me. I feel like Meta is getting closest to offering what I'm looking for but I would never in a million years trust them with any of my data. My wife has the first-gen raybans and they're great for taking photos and video clips of e.g. our kids' sporting events and concerts, where what it's replacing is a phone held up above the crowd getting in the way of the moment. But even with that I feel icky uploading those things to Meta's servers.
      - butlike 1y ago
        Meta's fine. Or at least on par with all the other ones.
- asadotzler 1y ago
  AR can surely be audio only. Or are you suggesting a blind person getting navigation instructions via cameras and speakers isn't augmenting their reality? If so, I violently disagree.
  - croes 1y ago
    And listening to Spotify is VR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
ygjb 1y ago
Meta Ray Bans and Googles Project Aura are products that I absolutely want, but absolutely don't want to buy them from either of those companies, or any company as invasive as they are. It's long past time for enhanced privacy regulation in the North American market because these products are going to be wildly invasive as people depend on them to mediate their experience with the world. I don't know what the right answer, and I am very much aware that building products like these that don't focus on monetizing user interaction and advertising would likely mean that they are priced out for lower income users, but I hope someone smarter than me can figure it out :S
- bdangubic 1y ago
  Meta Ray Bans and Googles Project Aura are products that I absolutely want, but absolutely don't want to buy them from either of those companies, or any company as invasive as they are. This! So much this! If a product from these companies could make my life 1,000,000x better I would still be in “thanks but no thanks crowd”
- theyinwhy 1y ago
  Aren't the Auras from Xreal?
  - yahoozoo 1y ago
    Yeah, it’s a collaboration.
Eggpants 1y ago
It take a special kind of person to think, yeah, I'll wear a live camera and microphone connected to Facebook...

robbomacrae 1y ago

To quote from the article regarding Humane and the Rabbit r1 personal assistant device: “Those were very poor products,” said Ive, 58. “There has been an absence of new ways of thinking expressed in products.”

joshstrange 1y ago
To quote myself: "Jony Ive made incredibly poor products his last years at Apple" - So his opinion of what constitutes a "poor product" is suspect (R1 and Humane were bad products but just because you can tell what is a bad product doesn't mean you can make a good one).
- mattlondon 1y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. If they were so obviously bad at the time, how did they get to market?
  - breppp 1y ago
    That's a good question, VC pressure and hope for first mover advantage? The humane launch video features two founders that look like they were forced to participate by their hostage takers
  - bdangubic 1y ago
    lots of things “get to market” - pretty easy to get something to market
  - jm4 1y ago
    I don't know anything about Humane, but the Rabbit was a terrible product right from the start. It was viewed overwhelmingly negatively as soon as it was unveiled.
  - turnsout 1y ago
    It's widely understood that Jony was given carte blanche after Steve died, to keep him at Apple. Hence the gold Apple Watch.

amelius 1y ago

> No question that Ive is a legend Not sure why he deserves to be a legend, to be honest, but yes, he is a legend. He did a good job, but those small and minimalistic designs were only possible because of the efforts of entire teams of engineers, of which the public never heard anything.

bigyabai 1y ago
And many of those designs were made at Ive's behest, against the wishes of entire teams of engineers. I feel like we have his "courage" to blame for the Butterfly keyboard, terrible Mac thermals and the lack of ports on "Pro" computers.
- trane_project 1y ago
  The thermals were all Intel’s fault. My 2019 MacBook from work is an oven. I can’t tell whether my smaller m4 max is turned on by touching it.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Your 2019 Macbook also uses a different chassis, designed by Jony Ive. Apple knew it throttled the chips they used but shipped it anyways, presumably because Ive liked his thinness even when it results in a bendgate. You'll note that Macbooks don't quite look the same after Ive left and his influence went away.
    - PantaloonFlames 1y ago
      I don’t actually know. Last MBP I had was circa 2017 or so. How are they different ?
      - kshacker 1y ago
        Beefier. Bulkier. Quick google search says Intel 16" was 4.3 lbs whereas M4 16" is 4.7 lbs. Not a big difference you say but 1) it is going in the opposite direction where the newer product is bulkier and 2) imagine the years of thin-ness that would have been forced under a different regime.

arusahni 1y ago

This is the same dude who brought us the butterfly keyboard, so I'm anticipating a form-beating-function failure (if they actually ship something).

izolate 1y ago
It's also the same dude who brought us beloved products in Apple's lineup. It's almost a meme at this point to say that Jony Ive's genius needs a containing force like Steve Jobs. Perhaps Sam Altman can fill that role.
- peaseagee 1y ago
  Altman can't fill that role for himself, I don't think he could do it for Ive...
- no_wizard 1y ago
  Jobs, for all his faults, understood where aesthetic, functionality and user experience intersected extremely well. He got stuff wrong too, don’t get me wrong, but I have yet to see another CEO (heck any business person of note) with the same pattern of deep understanding of how those things intersected as well as he did
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    People say this while outright ignoring all the outright failures Jobs had because he DIDN'T have that understanding. The Lisa, the Newton, NeXT computers, trying to dump Pixar pretty much right before they made it big right as the tech was finally catching up to their ideas. The reality is Jobs got to roll the dice a bunch of times, and if you get to roll the dice a lot, you will have some wins. Looking only at the wins is not useful.
    - no_wizard 1y ago
      I don't have the time or space to write up a proper rebuttal, but I will suffice to say, after reading an incredible amount about not only Jobs, but Apple, NeXT, the Newton, Pixar, things about tech, especially early home computing, the man performed well above his peers with regards to where aesthetic, functionality and user experience intersected. Note, I am not talking about how he ran the businesses otherwise. He wasn't always right, as I said already, but he was far better than most at this. More importantly, he was far better at most at getting others to shave their vision down to the simplest of ideas. If you look at the competitors to Apple or NeXT during their respective eras, they were not very thoughtful in their deliberations. It doesn't mean every idea he had was successful either, but I'm speaking specifically to the fact he intersected the three points extremely well. At a certain point, someone is good enough at something its more than luck

npollock 1y ago

"The takeover of io will provide OpenAI with about 55 hardware engineers, software developers and manufacturing experts" 6.5B / 55 = $118 million per engineer not a cheap aquihire

hinkley 1y ago
Who now expect to be paid.

lallaolala 1y ago

[dead]

PokemonNoGo 1y ago

That's how I read the article and came to find your comments. AI bought a human.

fallinditch 1y ago

Agreed. It's hard to think of a new product category for smart devices ... unless maybe Smart HATS! OK folks so remember where you heard it first - ultra stylish head gear with flip-down visor screen anyone?

Pxtl 1y ago
Even as a joke that's still just a goofier version of smart glasses. There really is nothing new under the sun.
- fallinditch 1y ago
  True, I guess they will innovate around devices and periferals that enable or facilitate AI powered activities, and hope to pioneer a new category of activity, and look damn cool at the same time.
yahoozoo 1y ago
Eye contacts that have a HUD could be cool. But that’s not really something you need someone like Ive for.

pzo 1y ago

Humane was very impressive product from hardware perspective and design but poor execution and software (partially because they don't own smartphone os like android/iOS). If similar hardware was: - released by apple or google and deeply integrated with android/iOS - embedded inside apple watch / pixel watch - embedded inside slim airpods case that could be wear as pendant - apple had siri as good as gemini and very good local STT to reduce latency - MCP clients got more adopted by integrated in smartphones AI assistants then it could be a hit. They lost because they shipped to early, without having big pockets for long game, without owning android OS / iOS and charged big price + subscription for this gadgets. I think google currently is the best positioned to pull seamless experience with pixel devices (smartphone, watch, buds, gemini)