今天在《Decoder》节目中，我将与《The Verge》的高级人工智能记者海登·菲尔德（Hayden Field）讨论苹果与OpenAI之间的重大商业机密诉讼：/tech/964350/apple-openai-lawsuit-trade-secrets，以及这对OpenAI未来意味着什么。
现在我相信大多数《Decoder》的听众都已经熟悉苹果在此案中的指控：/tech/964843/apple-openai-lawsuit-wildest-claims。苹果表示，在OpenAI工作的多名前苹果员工在面试过程中针对苹果的商业机密，甚至从苹果服务器下载与硬件制造相关的文件。这些指控令人震惊，尽管OpenAI否认这些指控，而且我们尚未看到该公司的法律回应。
海登已经报道OpenAI多年，她最近还与一群专门研究知识产权和商业机密法的律师进行了交谈：/ai-artificial-intelligence/965294/openai-apple-trade-secrets-lawsuit-sam-altman-ipo，以了解此案的严重程度。答案对OpenAI来说并不完全乐观，毕竟OpenAI在2025年花费65亿美元收购了传奇苹果设计师乔尼·艾夫（Jony Ive）的AI硬件初创公司io Products：/news/671838/openai-jony-ive-ai-hardware-apple。
正如你将听到海登解释的那样，苹果素以诉讼坚韧著称，并且我们有很多科技行业的历史来支持这一声誉。但那些案件的对手是微软和三星这样规模的公司，那些大型企业能够承受这种诉讼的成本和分心。
而OpenAI尚未成为那种规模的公司。它仍在大量消耗资金，在试图同时竞争企业市场和消费者市场时略显战略漂浮，并且高管更替频繁。因此，我和海登花了很多时间讨论这一案件可能对一个定义了AI早期繁荣的公司意味着什么，而该公司最近似乎总是处于某种危机之中。
好的：让我们请《The Verge》的高级人工智能记者海登·菲尔德来谈谈苹果与OpenAI的诉讼，以及这可能如何改变AI行业。开始吧。
本次采访已做了轻微编辑以便于篇幅和清晰度。
海登·菲尔德，你是《The Verge》的高级人工智能记者。欢迎回到《Decoder》。
我们再次要谈论OpenAI，海登。
我们将讨论OpenAI在高度分心的时期是否能够保持专注，这似乎是该公司的一个主题。虽然这次，不是他们自己的分心，而是来自世界的分心，也许是由于他们自己的一些行为造成的。
当然，我们在谈论的是苹果的商业机密诉讼。这感觉像是件大事。苹果指控OpenAI窃取了该公司各种信息，甚至在面试中——在面试中要求应聘者告诉他们对苹果产品的了解。请简要告诉我们这场诉讼和这里发生的情况。
确实如此。这真的很疯狂。我上周写了一篇题为《萨姆·奥特曼不需要另一场诉讼》的文章：/ai-artificial-intelligence/965294/openai-apple-trade-secrets-lawsuit-sam-altman-ipo，这正是当前的情况。从苹果提出的一些指控来看，这似乎相当严重。据称，一名前苹果员工在面试中索取商业机密，要求人们可能把苹果办公室之外的硬件带到OpenAI，在面试中进行“展示和讲解”，诸如此类。
有很多指控听起来相当离谱。但当我上周实际上采访了很多专家时，他们说他们以前经常见到这些情况，只是没见过在一个案件中涉及两个关键参与方的所有情况。
如果这些事情属实，有些情况确实相当严重。但对于领域内的专家来说，他们表示，“哦，我们在商业机密案件中经常看到这些。这并不离谱。真正离谱的是这些事情全部集中在一个案件中，而且涉及两家很大的公司。”
然后在2000年代和2010年代初期，苹果将专利法推到了极限，起诉三星因其Android和Galaxy手机 allegedly 侵犯了大量专利，因为苹果认为其已经保护了iPhone。三星最终支付了大约10亿美元的赔偿金，而这些案件则不断循环。
但我要指出的是，Android仍然存在，三星运作良好。苹果可能重新定义了关于3G和4G许可的专利法，但从根本上说，它实际上并没有通过知识产权诉讼成功阻止竞争对手。
但我不知道 OpenAI 是否在同一时间仍是同一家公司。至少从苹果现在告诉我们的故事来看，似乎所有跳槽到 OpenAI 的苹果员工可能都把限度推得太远了。
阅读诉讼中最疯狂的指控和同时交换的消息真的很疯狂。据称，其中一人曾在一台设备上访问了苹果的机密信息，然后说：“哈哈！我居然能访问这个，太好笑了。”里面有很多内容。
我也一直在想同样的事情。这真的取决于苹果愿意是小气一点还是非常讲逻辑。当我采访了一些律师时，他们说苹果是出了名的顽强诉讼方，我们在过去的案件中也看到过。但他们也确实会把事情做到极致。他们有很多钱，而且愿意使用这些钱。这完全取决于他们有多生气。
我认为，如果 OpenAI 给够钱，他们可能会选择和解，但 OpenAI 能做到吗？他们今年已经非常艰难。他们即将上市，所有投资者都在关注他们的利润状况，想知道他们什么时候能盈利。现在是向苹果支付大量资金的艰难时期。我们只能拭目以待他们会怎么做。
我认为这会进入审判阶段，并且会是一个持续多年的漫长过程。采访过的很多律师也是这么说的。但我可以想象一种情况——他们想办法凑齐所有的钱支付，苹果也许会接受。
在三星的专利案件中，这些案子持续了很久。在案件进行中，蒂姆·库克出席了 Code 会议，我问他：“你在做什么？这样做有意义吗？”他非常认真地看着我说：“嗯，我们认为标准必要专利的许可费用过高。”我当时心想，“这不是你们做这些事情的真正原因。重点不是这个，重点是你们生气，你们想把这场诉讼搞到极致，而且无论表面理由是什么，你们都会把这场诉讼进行到底。”
这似乎是这里拼图中的一个重要部分。OpenAI 招募了许多苹果员工。众所周知，苹果最著名的设计师乔尼·艾夫正在与 OpenAI 合作开发硬件设备。唐坦是 OpenAI 的首席硬件官。他在苹果有“玩得很随意”的名声，这来自彭博社的 Mark Gurman：https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-11/openai-engineer-s-lol-moment-set-stage-for-legal-fight-with-apple。
他似乎是故事中的核心人物，不是乔尼·艾夫，而是唐坦。那块讲述一群前苹果员工可能玩得太快太随意的部分几乎感觉像是个人恩怨，几乎感觉包含了很多情绪。谈谈唐坦，以及谈谈这些人据称做的事情，这些感觉比标准的大公司纠纷更加个人化。
关于你说的与蒂姆·库克谈话，我真的相信人们低估了公司的小气。近年来我们已经看到了这种情况，就像 OpenAI 和埃隆·马斯克的诉讼一样。如果公司不总是尝试小气，其实很多事情本可以避免，这也没问题，他们可以这样做，他们有足够的钱这样做。但人们低估了这种因素有时在这些事情中起到的作用。
至于唐坦，是的，他在苹果工作了24年。他曾是 Apple Watch 的副总裁。他在2024年离开去乔尼·艾夫的硬件公司 io Products 工作，显然 OpenAI 最终收购了这家公司：/news/671838/openai-jony-ive-ai-hardware-apple。
随后 OpenAI 任命他为首席硬件官。所以他在 OpenAI 拥有高管职位，但这是在苹果工作了 24 年之后。根据苹果诉讼中的说法，他是这一系列商业机密收集的幕后主脑，他在采访中会询问一些秘密代号项目的情况。而被采访的人会觉得或许可以跟他讲一些事情，因为，哦，如果他没参与，怎么会知道这个项目的名称或这些细节呢？所以，他们感觉可以更自由地发言，据称如此。
还有其他时候，他会问：“嘿，你为什么不带一些你以前在苹果办公室做过的电池或其他硬件出来，这样我们就可以做一个展示和讲解呢？”浏览这些说法非常有趣。看起来他真的不担心这些说法如果是真的会产生什么结果。
这里的另一个主要人物是乔尼·艾夫（Jony Ive），苹果非常著名的前设计师，他曾与史蒂夫·乔布斯和那些著名项目一起工作。我会说，据报道，艾夫与苹果的关系非常紧张。
现在他已经离开，他在各种采访和声明中都明确表达了这一点。而且他正在与萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）合作开发新设备。他和萨姆·奥特曼制作了一段视频，我只能把它形容为一次浪漫的咖啡约会：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDNyFN_eMec&t=26s。
在视频中，他们将手机和笔记本电脑描述为遗产设备。
这立刻成了网络迷因。我得说这些迷因非常精彩。
非常棒。他们为拍摄视频几乎封锁了旧金山一半的区域。我认为艾夫在视频中称手机和笔记本电脑为遗产设备，这完全是在针对苹果。这些都是他曾制作的，被他以多种方式革新的东西。而他却说，“这些现在已经结束了。”
对于这是否是真的，这是否可能实现，你可以有很多看法，我稍后想谈谈这个。但令我注意的是，这次诉讼中并没有提到乔尼·艾夫。有一条苹果不会触碰的线，那就是提及正是乔尼·艾夫去了OpenAI，并开始招募他以前的设计师们，他把公司的一大部分卖给了OpenAI。而现在，他们试图制造硬件，并据称窃取商业机密。但乔尼·艾夫，他没有被牵扯其中。我们只会把他的名字排除在外。
这是因为他太出名吗？是因为太敏感吗？还是因为他仍然与劳琳·鲍威尔·乔布斯（Laurene Powell Jobs）是朋友？你对此有什么看法？
我觉得更可能的是他知道如何掩盖自己的踪迹。可能他太有权势，或者是你说的那些原因，但我真的觉得只是因为他让其他人替他做肮脏的工作。这个诉讼里的其他事情相当严重，他们都已经找到了。所以，如果他们真的在 Jony Ive 身上发现了一些非常严重的事情，他们真的不会把它放进诉讼吗？他们之间有一些恶劣的矛盾。我只是觉得他们会把这些放进去。
这只是猜测，但当你处在一个足够有权势的职位时，你不必亲自做所有事情。你有其他人替你去做，同时你也知道如何掩盖自己的踪迹。所以，对我来说，也许他们只是没有找到他的问题。
是啊，或者他被分心去设计没人喜欢的法拉利：/transportation/939226/ferrari-luce-design-terrible-ev-jony-ive-apple，或者他在做的其他事情，但他没有参与这件事。我确实觉得这很值得注意，因为 Sam Altman 聘请 Jony Ive 的原因是为了对下一代设备提出可信的主张。无论那种 AI 驱动的设备会是什么，你都要聘请最著名的设计师来说：“我设计了 iPhone，我要设计这个东西。”
然后似乎 OpenAI 也想获取大量苹果的专业知识来制作那个东西。你怎么理解这个，OpenAI 需要苹果的硬件知识？或者至少苹果声称 OpenAI 需要苹果的硬件知识来制作下一代产品？
在某种程度上，无论你是谈论商业机密，还是通过雇佣他们的员工获取一般合法的专业知识，他们当然需要。AI 硬件已经有大量失败案例，他们试图避免成为下一个 Humane AI Pin：/gadgets/615135/humane-ai-pin-shutdown-disaster。在当今时代制作 AI 硬件设备可能极其尴尬。你很可能会彻底失败，成为笑柄。所以，如果你想避免那种情况，当然需要让最好的人站在你这边。
硬件很难，正如大家所说，因此他们当然想要请进那些在硬件方面实际非常成功的专家。这对我来说并不令人惊讶，我认为这是一个明智的决定。OpenAI 过去已经证明——这也是每家科技公司的常见情况，不只是 OpenAI——有时他们与消费者真正想要的东西略显脱节。
你推出了某样东西，但没人真正需要它。好吧。对于软件来说，调整起来稍微容易一些，正如我们看到 OpenAI 删除它的一些副项目一样：/ai-artificial-intelligence/963654/openai-chatgpt-atlas-ai-browser-shut-down-sunset 等等。他们就像，“哦，我们不再做这个了：/ai-artificial-intelligence/902368/openai-sora-dead-ai-video-generation-competition。我们不再做这个了。我们把它整合到那个里面：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/07/openai-is-still-working-on-that-super-app/。”而硬件就不能这样，你最好从一开始就把它做好。
我很高兴你提到了消费者，因为这让我想到了我认为 OpenAI 的核心问题，那就是它本来要成为消费者 AI 公司，而 Anthropic 众所周知专注于企业方向，并且这对他们来说很有利可图；也许钱都在那里。但 OpenAI 本来要打败谷歌，也许通过 Bing，也许通过自己的应用。它本来要成为一家面向消费者的公司。
你制造硬件的唯一原因就是为了攻击消费者市场，为了挑战 iPhone。所以，至少在我看来，OpenAI 的野心首先是从谷歌手中抢占市场份额，而谷歌是世界历史上最赚钱的企业之一，然后去挑战 iPhone，而 iPhone 是有史以来最著名、文化上最具主导性的科技产品。
我不知道它如何能做到这两件事。看起来消费者似乎并不想要这些产品，或者并不想要这种规模的 AI。我不知道消费者市场的收入从何而来，而大学生们在毕业典礼上都在嘘 AI：/ai-artificial-intelligence/935602/graduates-boo-ai-ceos。OpenAI 会不会只是需要转向企业市场？它是否需要在搞清楚自己的业务之前，先在消费者硬件设备上白白耗费时间？
OpenAI在内部已经多次转型。它最近的一次转型是决定将重点放在其主要收入驱动因素上，即企业业务和编程。他们已经说过无数次。OpenAI关闭了Sora、Atlas和色情短信功能。感觉就像很多年前的事，但疯狂的是，那居然就在去年：/news/799312/openai-chatgpt-erotica-sam-altman-verified-adults。
他们做了很多这样的事情，所以每个人都认为，“好吧，他们要全力以赴，他们要做企业业务”，因为这是这里行之有效的赚钱方式，特别是在他们准备上市的这一年。公平地说，是的，他们在这次转型和放弃副业计划之前就已经计划做硬件设备了。我猜他们无法放弃这个潜在的副业计划，因为他们已经在上面花了很多钱，不管怎样，它都要发生。所以现在他们只是尽力让它尽可能成功。
我只从事AI报道六年。对于AI来说，这是很长的一段时间，也许我错过了什么，但我真的看不到大家都去购买OpenAI硬件设备的市场。如果我错了，我们可以回到这里来嘲笑我2026年7月的这段采访。智能音箱，好吧，也许人们只是买来当作智能音箱用，就像Google Home那样，我就是这么用的。
我认为它会成为那种少数人非常非常喜欢，而普通大众可能不会采用的东西，因为除非他们所有的朋友都有，否则很难让人们去使用。这里有一种社交因素。如果你没有iPhone，你在绿色短信中就会成为笑柄。不是针对安卓用户，我只是说有时你无法加入群聊或类似情况。这很令人难过，也不对，但如果你想采用一种新的硬件设备，多数时候必须要有一些公众认同感。
我们在智能手机热潮开始时创立了The Verge。回想起来，人们是否会接受智能手机从来不是问题。这是显而易见的。对我们来说是显而易见的，也许对不是每个人都显而易见，但我们身处其中，唯一不明显的是谁会成为赢家。
过了一会儿，很明显苹果会获胜。15年前我们报道了多少iPhone杀手？它们都来了又去了，看起来像是新的操作系统。Windows Phone存在过。Palm Pre运行的是名为webOS的操作系统。Android正在崛起。诺基亚尝试做自己的东西，然后又转向了Windows Phone。
归根结底，我们最终有了iOS和Android，其他一切都随之落入了轨道。也许整个科技行业都讨厌这种情况，他们讨厌支付App Store费用，但这感觉像是OpenAI即将推出硬件设备的时刻，它将运行自己的操作系统。埃隆·马斯克对Starlink和xAI推出自己的手机正在激烈发声：/science/960442/spacex-phone-prototype-elon-musk，可能会运行自己的操作系统，显然在IPO前的准备阶段，他们已经在向人们展示这款设备。
我只是有一些真的很傻的问题，在我看来，这些问题反映了我们15年前对新智能手机操作系统提出的同样问题。你会做一个Gmail客户端吗？它会有Instagram吗？因为如果你没有这些东西，你实际上无法替代手机。如果你不替代手机，好吧，我这里正好有iPhone上的iOS 27测试版，Siri AI绝对足够应付日常使用。
这才是真正让我心动的地方，因为智能手机取代了普通手机。所以，好吧，你必须提供比智能手机更强大的东西。你会做到吗？值得怀疑，但我们拭目以待。
但另一个让我关注的是据说OpenAI正在开发的设备数量。据说是五款硬件设备，而无屏智能音箱是第一款。他们怎么能想出五款设备？这是我想知道的。哪五款？难道你不应该把所有资源集中在一款上吗？开发一款设备就已经很难了。我对五款成功的AI硬件设备持怀疑态度。即使一款也很难成功，五款就有点疯狂了。
我相信会有很多设备，有些会来又走。我特别想到的是关于Jony Ive及其硬件设计方法——我们已经很熟悉这一点，我们曾见证他在苹果推出了很多硬件——Ive往往专注于新设备的新输入方式。
iPod 有点击轮，这真正定义了 iPod 的形式和功能。iPhone 有多点触控屏，这真正定义了 iPhone 的形式和功能，后来还有 iPad。如果你还记得 Apple Watch，他们发布时大肆宣传了侧边的滚轮。我不知道那是否实现了，但在推出 Apple Watch 时，他们确实认为那是件大事。
这是 Ive 的惯用路径：“我们找到了一种新的输入机制，我们将围绕它定义产品。”我完全知道 AI 的输入机制应该是什么——那就是自然语言输入。你可以直接告诉计算机你想要什么，它会理解并去执行。
但是我们进入 AI 革命已经多少年了？进入这个版本三四年？而它还没有完全实现。我认为这就是为什么 AI 设备一直失败的原因，正如你不断提到的。因为你可以整天整夜和 Humane Pin 对话，它会假装理解你，但实际上无法完成背后的操作。
这似乎就是目前 AI 的问题所在。有时会闪现出惊人的创意，但能力又存在局限。你认为我们在弄清楚 AI 究竟能做什么、不能做什么的过程中处于什么阶段？你觉得这会如何限制硬件设备的发挥？
Today on Decoder , I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge ’s senior AI reporter, about the major trade secrets lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI：/tech/964350/apple-openai-lawsuit-trade-secrets and what this tells us about OpenAI’s future.
By now I’m sure most Decoder listeners are familiar with Apple’s allegations in this case：/tech/964843/apple-openai-lawsuit-wildest-claims. The company says a number of ex-Apple employees at OpenAI targeted Apple’s trade secrets in job interviews and even downloaded files from Apple’s servers related to hardware manufacturing. The claims are shocking, although OpenAI denies them, and we have yet to see the company’s legal response.
Hayden has been covering OpenAI for years now, and she also just talked to a bunch of lawyers：/ai-artificial-intelligence/965294/openai-apple-trade-secrets-lawsuit-sam-altman-ipo who specialize in intellectual property and trade secret law to get a sense of how serious this case is. The answer is not entirely positive for OpenAI, which spent $6.5 billion to acquire legendary Apple designer Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup, io Products：/news/671838/openai-jony-ive-ai-hardware-apple, back in 2025.
As you’ll hear Hayden explain, Apple is a notoriously tenacious litigant, and we have lots of tech industry history to back up that reputation. But those cases were against companies at the scale of Microsoft and Samsung, giant corporations that could afford the cost and distraction of this kind of litigation.
OpenAI isn’t yet that kind of company. It’s still burning cash and a little strategically adrift as it tries to compete in both enterprise and consumer markets, and it’s turning over executives on a regular basis. So Hayden and I spent a lot of time talking about what this case might mean for a company that defined the early part of the AI boom, but which lately always seems to be in a crisis of one sort or another.
Okay: Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field on the Apple-OpenAI lawsuit, and how the AI industry might change because of it. Here we go.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hayden Field, you’re the senior AI reporter for The Verge . Welcome back to Decoder .
Once again, we’re going to talk about OpenAI, Hayden.
We’re going to talk about whether OpenAI can maintain focus at a time of great distraction, which seems to be a theme with that company. Although this time, it’s not their own distraction. It’s a distraction from out in the world, maybe caused by some of their own behavior.
Of course, we’re talking about the Apple trade secret lawsuit. It feels like a big deal. Apple is accusing OpenAI of stealing all kinds of information from that company, even in job interviews — asking people in job interviews to tell them what they know about Apple products. Tell us briefly about this lawsuit and what’s going on here.
Definitely. So, it is crazy. I wrote a piece last week titled “Sam Altman didn’t need another lawsuit,”：/ai-artificial-intelligence/965294/openai-apple-trade-secrets-lawsuit-sam-altman-ipo and that’s really the situation here. It seems pretty egregious from some of the claims that Apple is making. A former Apple employee was allegedly soliciting trade secrets over interviews, asking people to maybe bring pieces of hardware outside the Apple office to OpenAI to do a “show and tell” in interviews, things like that.
There’s a lot of allegations being made that are pretty crazy. But then when I actually interviewed a bunch of experts last week, they said they’ve seen all of this before, a lot. It’s just they haven’t seen all of it in one case with two key players.
Some of this stuff is pretty egregious, if it turns out to be true. But also, to the experts in the space, they’re saying, “Oh, we see this all the time with trade secrets cases. It’s not crazy. What’s really crazy is that it’s all in one case and that it’s two really large companies.”
And then in the 2000s and early 2010s, Apple pushed patent law to the limit, suing Samsung for allegedly violating a bunch of patents with Android and Galaxy phones because Apple felt that they had protected the iPhone. Samsung eventually paid about $1 billion in damages and those cases just went around in circles forever.
But I’ll point out that Android still exists, Samsung is doing just fine. Apple may have redefined patent law around 3G and 4G licensing, but fundamentally, it did not actually succeed in stopping its competitors with intellectual property lawsuits.
But I don’t know if OpenAI is the same company at the same moment. It certainly seems like all of the Apple employees that went over to OpenAI maybe pushed the limit too much, at least from the story that Apple’s telling us right now.
It’s pretty crazy reading the wildest claims from the lawsuit and also the messages that were being exchanged. One of them allegedly accessed Apple confidential information on a device and then said, “LOL! So funny that I can access this.” There’s a lot there.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. It really depends on Apple’s willingness to be petty or be super logical here. When I interviewed a bunch of lawyers about this, they said Apple is a notoriously tenacious litigant, as we’ve seen in those past cases. But also, they really will take things far. They have a lot of money and they’re willing to use it. It really just depends on how mad they are.
I think that they would potentially settle if OpenAI paid them enough, but will OpenAI be able to do that? They’re already having a really tough year. They’re about to IPO, all the investors are looking at their bottom line, wondering when they’re going to turn a profit. It’s a tough time to be shelling out a ton of money to Apple. We’ll have to see what they do.
I think it’s going to go to trial and be a very drawn-out years-long thing. That’s what a lot of the lawyers I interviewed said as well. But I could see a world in which they just figure out a way to get all this money together and pay and maybe Apple accepts it.
In the Samsung patent cases, they lasted forever. In the middle of it, Tim Cook was at a Code Conference and I asked him, “What are you doing? Is this accomplishing anything?” And he looked at me very seriously and he said, “Well, we think the fees for licensing standard essential patents are out of whack.” And I was like, “That is not the reason you’re doing any of this. That’s not the point, the point is that you were mad and you wanted to run this lawsuit to ground and you’re going to run this lawsuit to ground no matter what the nominal reason is.”
That feels like a big piece of the puzzle here. OpenAI has taken a bunch of Apple employees. Famously Jony Ive, Apple’s most famous designer, is working with OpenAI on hardware devices. Tang Tan, who is OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. He had a reputation at Apple for “playing fast and loose,” that’s from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg ：https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-11/openai-engineer-s-lol-moment-set-stage-for-legal-fight-with-apple .
He seems like the central character in the story, not so much Jony Ive, but Tang Tan. And that piece where it’s a bunch of ex-Apple people maybe playing too fast and loose almost feels like it’s personal, almost feels like there’s a lot of emotions involved. Talk about Tang Tan and talk about what all these folks are alleged to have done that feels like it’s a little more personal than your standard big corporate dispute.
On what you said about talking to Tim Cook, I truly believe people underestimate companies’ pettiness. We’ve seen it in recent years, like with the OpenAI-Elon Musk lawsuit. There are so many things that could have been avoided if companies weren’t trying to just be petty, which is fine. They can do that, they have enough money to do that. But people underestimate how much that plays a part sometimes in these things.
As for Tang Tan, yeah, he worked at Apple for 24 years. He was the VP of the Apple Watch. He left in 2024 to work on Jony Ive’s hardware company, io Products, which obviously OpenAI ended up purchasing：/news/671838/openai-jony-ive-ai-hardware-apple.
OpenAI then appointed him as chief hardware officer. So he had a C-suite role at OpenAI, but this is after 24 years at Apple. According to Apple’s lawsuit claims, he was the mastermind of a lot of this trade secrets gathering, regarding interviews that he would conduct and ask about secret code-named projects. And then the person being interviewed would feel like maybe they were able to tell him stuff because, oh, well, why would he know the name of this project or these details about it if he wasn’t involved also? So, they felt they could speak more freely, allegedly.
There were other times that he asked, “Hey, why don’t you bring some batteries or other pieces of hardware outside the Apple office that you’ve worked on in the past so that we can do a show and tell?” It’s very interesting to go through these claims. It just seemed like he really was not worried about what was going to come of this, if these claims are true.
The other major character here is Jony Ive, Apple’s very famous ex-designer who worked with Steve Jobs and all of those famous projects. I would say Ive reportedly has a very testy relationship with Apple.
Now that he’s left, he’s certainly made that clear in various interviews and statements. And he’s working with Sam Altman on new devices. He made a video with Sam Altman, which I can only describe as a romantic coffee date ：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDNyFN_eMec&t=26s .
In which they described the phone and the laptop as legacy devices.
It was instantly memed. I have to say the memes were amazing.
It’s very good. And they shut down half of San Francisco to make it. I thought Ive calling the phone and the laptop legacy devices in that video was just a straight shot at Apple. These are the things that he made, that he revolutionized in many, many ways. And he’s like, “These are over now.”
You can say a lot about whether that’s true, whether that can come true, and I want to talk about that in a little bit. But it’s notable to me that Jony Ive is not mentioned in this lawsuit. There’s a line Apple wouldn’t cross, and it’s mentioning the fact that it’s Jony Ive who went to OpenAI and started hiring all of his old designers, who sold a big portion of his company to OpenAI. And now, they’re trying to make hardware and allegedly stealing trade secrets. But Jony Ive, he’s not part of it. We’re just going to leave his name out of it.
Is that because he’s too famous? Is that because it’s too nuclear? Is it because he’s still friends with Laurene Powell Jobs? What do you make of that?
I think it may be more that he knew how to cover his tracks. It could be that he’s too powerful or any of the things you said, but I really feel like it’s just that he has other people doing his dirty work for him. The other stuff in this lawsuit is pretty egregious, and they’ve found it all. So if they found some really intense stuff on Jony Ive, would they really not put it in the lawsuit? There’s some bad blood between them. I just feel like they would put it in there.
This is just speculation, but when you’re in a powerful enough role, you don’t have to do all this stuff yourself. You have other people doing it for you and you also know how to cover your tracks. So, to me, maybe they just didn’t have anything on him.
Yeah, or he’s distracted designing Ferraris no one likes ：/transportation/939226/ferrari-luce-design-terrible-ev-jony-ive-apple or whatever it is he’s doing, but he’s not in this. I do think that’s notable because the reason Sam Altman would hire Jony Ive is to make a credible claim to the next device. Whatever that category of AI-powered device is going to be, you hire the most famous designer to say, “I made the iPhone and I’m going to make this thing.”
And then it seems like OpenAI also wanted a bunch of Apple’s know-how in order to make that thing. What do you make of that, that OpenAI needed hardware know-how from Apple? Or at least Apple alleges that OpenAI needed hardware know-how from Apple to make whatever the next thing is?
To some extent, whether you’re talking about trade secrets or just regular legal aboveboard know-how from hiring their employees, of course they needed it. They’ve seen a ton of hardware in AI crash and burn and they’re trying to not become the next Humane AI Pin：/gadgets/615135/humane-ai-pin-shutdown-disaster. It can be incredibly embarrassing to make an AI hardware device in this day and age. Chances are you’re probably going to fail miserably and become a laughingstock. And so, if you want to avoid that, of course you need to get the best people on your side.
Hardware is hard, as everyone says, so of course they want to get experts in there that have experience actually being incredibly successful at hardware. That’s not surprising to me and I think it’s a smart decision. OpenAI has demonstrated in the past — and this is typical of every tech company, it’s not just OpenAI— that sometimes they’re a little bit disconnected from what the consumer actually wants.
You roll something out, no one really wants it. Okay. With software that’s a little easier to pivot from, as we’ve seen from OpenAI deleting its side quests：/ai-artificial-intelligence/963654/openai-chatgpt-atlas-ai-browser-shut-down-sunset and stuff. They’re like, “Oh, we’re not doing this anymore：/ai-artificial-intelligence/902368/openai-sora-dead-ai-video-generation-competition. We’re not doing this anymore. We’re rolling this into that：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/07/openai-is-still-working-on-that-super-app/.” With hardware, you can’t do that. You’d better have it right from the get-go.
I’m glad you said consumer, because that brings me to what I think is the heart of the matter for OpenAI, which is that it was going to be the consumer AI company, Anthropic famously focuses on enterprise and it’s been lucrative for them; maybe that’s where all of the money is. But OpenAI was going to take down Google, maybe through Bing, maybe through its own app. It was going to be a consumer company.
The only reason you would make hardware is to go attack the consumer, to go attack the iPhone. So, OpenAI’s ambitions, at least as I could see them, were first to take market share from Google, which is one of the most lucrative businesses in the history of the world, and then to go attack the iPhone, which is the most famous and culturally dominant tech product that has ever existed.
I don’t know how it can do either of those things. It doesn’t seem like consumers even want these products or want AI at this scale. I don’t know where that revenue comes from in consumer, and the college students are all booing AI at graduation ：/ai-artificial-intelligence/935602/graduates-boo-ai-ceos . Does OpenAI just need to pivot to enterprise? Does it need to spend its time spinning its wheels at consumer hardware devices before it figures out its business?
OpenAI has pivoted so many times internally. Its most recent pivot was that it was going to focus on its key revenue drivers, which are enterprise and coding. They’ve said that a million times. OpenAI folded Sora, Atlas, the sexting feature. It feels like years ago, but it’s crazy that that was in the past year：/news/799312/openai-chatgpt-erotica-sam-altman-verified-adults.
They’ve done a lot of this, and so, everyone thought, “Okay, they’re going for it, they’re doing enterprise,” because that’s the tried-and-true money maker here, especially in a year that they’re going to IPO. To be fair, yes, they had already planned to do the hardware device before this whole pivot and cutting out the side quests. I guess they can’t afford to cut out this potential side quest because they’ve already spent a lot on it, it’s happening no matter what. So now they’re just trying to make it as successful as it can.
I’ve only been on the AI beat for six years. That is a long time in AI, and maybe I’m missing something, but I just do not see a market when everyone is buying an OpenAI hardware device. If I’m wrong, we can come back on here and laugh at my clip from July 2026. A smart speaker, okay, maybe people buy it just to be a smart speaker like Google Home, that’s what I use mine for.
I think it’s going to be one of those things that a few people really, really, really love and that the general public probably does not adopt because it’s difficult to get them to adopt anything unless all their friends have it. There’s a social aspect. You’re going to be a laughingstock with green text if you don’t have an iPhone. No hate to Android people, I’m just saying sometimes you don’t get added to the group text or something. It’s sad and it’s not right, but there’s got to be some public buy-in if you’re going to be adopting a new piece of hardware a lot of the time.
We founded The Verge at the start of the smartphone boom. Just thinking back on it, it was never a question of whether people would adopt smartphones. That was obvious. It was obvious to us, maybe it wasn’t obvious to everyone, but we were in it and the only thing that wasn’t obvious was who would win.
After a while it became obvious that Apple would win. How many iPhone killers did we cover 15 years ago? And they all came and went, and they looked like new operating systems. Windows Phone existed. The Palm Pre ran an operating system called webOS. Android was ascendant. Nokia tried to do its own thing and then they pivoted to Windows Phone.
At the end of the day, we ended up with iOS and Android and everything else fell into line. Maybe the whole tech industry hates this and they hate paying the App Store fees, but this feels like that same kind of moment where OpenAI is going to put out a hardware device, it’s going to run its own operating system. Elon Musk is fulminating about Starlink and xAI putting out their own phone ：/science/960442/spacex-phone-prototype-elon-musk , maybe running their own operating system, apparently the run-up to IPO, they were showing it to people.
I just have really dumb questions that, to me, mirror the same questions we asked about new smartphone operating systems 15 years ago. Are you going to make a Gmail client? Is it going to have Instagram? Because if you don’t have those things, you don’t actually get to replace the phone. And if you don’t replace the phone, well, I’ve got the beta of iOS 27 on my iPhone right here and Siri AI is definitely good enough to just get through the day.
That’s what really gets me here, because the smartphone replaced the dumb phone. So okay, you’ve got to have something way better than the smartphone. Are you going to? Doubtful, but we’ll see.
But the other thing that gets me here is how many devices OpenAI is reportedly working on. Reportedly it’s five hardware devices, and the screenless smart speaker is the first one. How can they come up with five? That’s what I want to know. What are the five? And shouldn’t you be putting all your resources toward one? It’s already hard to make one. I’m a little dubious of five successful AI hardware devices. Even one is a long shot, but five is a little bit crazy.
I’m sure there’s a lot and some will come and go. The thing that I think about, particularly when it comes to Jony Ive and his approach to hardware — which is familiar at this point, we’ve watched him launch a lot of hardware at Apple — is Ive tends to focus on new input methods for new devices.
The iPod had the click wheel and that really defined the form and function of the iPod. The iPhone has a multitouch screen that really defined the form and function of the iPhone and then the iPad. If you’ll remember the Apple Watch, they launched it with great fanfare about the scroll wheel on the side. I don’t know if that came to pass, but they really thought that was a big deal when they launched the Apple Watch.
This is Ive’s go-to path: “We find a new input mechanism, we’re going to define the product around it.” I know exactly what that should be for AI — it’s a natural language input. You can just tell the computer whatever you want and it’ll figure it out and it’ll go off and do it for you.
But we’re however many years into the AI revolution?Three or four years into this version of it? And it doesn’t quite work yet. I think this is why the AI devices keep failing, as you keep mentioning. Because you can talk to a Humane Pin all day and all night and it will pretend to understand you and then not actually be able to do the things on the other side of it.
That feels like the problem in AI right now. There’s these flashes of brilliance and then there’s these limits of capability. Where do you think we are in that process of figuring out exactly what it can and can’t do? And how do you think that limits a hardware device?
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