OpenAI is building an AI-powered smart speaker nobody wants. That is, if you believe the Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman and you've read his description of said rumored device.

According to the report:

"OpenAI believes the product’s defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands. The machine also will draw on personal information such as emails to better understand its owner."

The news sources, it appears, come from an insider who decided to spill all the juicy details mere hours after Apple dropped a blockbuster trade-secrets lawsuit on OpenAI's head. OpenAI claims it's done nothing of the sort, and recent reports say that Apple's claim that the AI giant has not even responded to Apple's earliest concerns was based on it potentially incorrectly identifying the former Apple employees who left to join OpenAI (allegedly with Apple trade secrets in tow).

Apple's concerns here are twofold: First, these former employees had access to many of Apple's secretive product development details and may even have asked recruits to share fresh details when they approached them to interview for jobs at OpenAI. The other concern is that Apple is already far behind in the AI race, and if Apple's plans for Siri, AI, and a potential robotic desktop home assistant were also leaked, it could harm its ability to catch up in multiple market sectors.

This latest news, which may or may not be accurate, should put Apple's fears to rest.

OpenAI is apparently not building something that could ably compete with any of Apple's key hardware or future hardware initiatives.

First of all, there's the smart-speaker-ness of the whole rumored OpenAI concept. There are already too many smart speakers on the market, many of them with their own smart assistants. Amazon, for instance, is smack in the middle of trying to convince millions of customers that not only do they need Echo devices throughout the home, but they need the AI-powered Alexa+ to guide them through their smart home experiences and, to some extent, their lives.

Apple has its own HomePod, Siri-infused speakers, which may get considerably more powerful with the Gemini foundation model-backed version arriving this Fall.

Put another way, smart speakers are a known quantity in the home consumer electronics space, and I think what most tech companies are realizing is that people like and use them, but mostly in limited ways: they want music, occasional answers to simple questions, and voice control of their smart home devices. That's it.

Why does my speaker think it's alive?

OpenAI appears to be prepared to offer something different: a personality-filled speaker that can watch you, move to engage, seem alive, and generally make you feel uncomfortable.

Obviously, that would not be the objective, but it could be the result. Who needs a speaker that quietly watches you as you walk from your kitchen to the den, waiting and hoping for you to say, "hey ChatGPT, what's up with the Strait of Hormuz today?"

In my home, we have a Psync smart security webcam with one oddball feature: it has a motorized body that can turn almost 360 degrees on its base and lift its thin, rectangular face and camera to keep track of people and alert me to intruders. However, most of the time, it's just watching us move around the house, and I can tell you that my family hates it. Sometimes I come home and find its face forced down so it can't pop up and track anything.

Now, imagine a larger and far smarter OpenAI AI smart speaker in your home, watching, waiting, chiming in when you don't want it to, and generally making people feel uncomfortable.

This will not be the breakout hardware hit OpenAI is hoping for.

Look, I was under the impression that OpenAI (really Jony Ive and Sam Altman) were working on an AI wearable. I didn't love that idea either, but it was a lot less creepy than this.

So, Apple, chill out. OpenAI's plans are no threat to you, even if they do allegedly have a bunch of insidery Apple information.

I’m under no illusions that John Ternus’ Apple will be the exactly same as it has been under Tim Cook. Initially though, there will be few, if any, changes. Ternus is not an outsider with wild anti-Apple ideas intended to wake a sleeping giant. He's been here for decades, through all the major releases that made Apple, well, Apple. Claims that he's arriving in September to revive Apple's design excellence are, if not off base, then just wrong-headed.

First of all, the argument presupposes that there is something fundamentally lacking in Apple's Industrial design: Jony Ive was obviously lighting in a bottle, and current design lead Molly Anderson is a pale, albeit also British, imitation. (Granted, Anderson has not been in the position that long, taking over from Evans Hankey, who left in 2023.)

But accepting that presumption is to ignore all the beautifully designed products that have arrived under Cook's leadership, with and without Ive, and also often under the watchful eyes of Ternus.

Remember the Pro — oh

But since Ive's skills as a designer are so vaunted, let's start with a failure. Perhaps you remember the Mac Pro. No, not the cheese-grater design unveiled in 2023. While that had its detractors, it was miles above the trashcan design unveiled in 2013.

It was the ultimate expression (at least in PC terms) of Ive's "form meets function" obsession. The internal structure was sort of a triangle of boards that seemed perfectly wrong for a squat, circular enclosure. Ive's fingerprints were all over the impractical system, one that Craig Federighi later admitted to me (during a mea culpa meeting on the Pro) had boxed Apple into a thermal corner. It was hard to upgrade and was roundly rejected by pro system users.

Ive was also responsible for the Apple Pencil. With it, his penchant for skeuomorphism extended from app design into the physical world. The Apple Pencil fully resembled a white plastic version of a real, pencil, and to accommodate that, it had, under a custom cover, a hidden Lightning charging plug. You even needed a special adaptor to charge it. Later, wirelessly charging Apple Pencils, which I think Ive also designed, fixed this mess.

Naturally, Ive's hits far outweighed his misses, and many big ones came during the Cook-Ive collaboration period, including the iPad Air, the Apple Watch, and AirPods (which started awkwardly but gradually improved).

The more divisive Apple Vision Pro was likely designed under Hankey and Anderson's watchful eye. I do think it's a pleasant intersection between the needs of extremely high-end innovation and aesthetic appeal. Goggles will be goggles, after all.

Even iPhone design has remained, if not excellent, interesting.

The iPhone is still beautiful...discuss

When Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007, there really was no other handset quite like it. Apple set the bar and, over the years, every other manufacturer followed. It became harder and harder for Apple to differentiate its metal and glass slab from its competitors. The ever-larger camera arrays have provided a sort of design challenge and an opportunity at the same time. Hankey and Anderson, at least, came up with a giant island that's quite recognizable from a distance. And let's not discount color. The orange was a stroke of genius and the new MacBook Neo's playful Blush and Citrus colors are lively, proving Anderson knows how to marry form with expression.

Ternus' role as hardware lead means he's been seeing these designs for years. My sense in sitting down with him after the launch of the iPhone Air is that he is intimately involved with the process of shoving all that technology into ever-thinner, but shockingly strong frames. He gets that you need to marry engineering skills with industrial design to get a durable and usable product that's still attractive.

When I think about what Ternus will do when he finally takes over in September, I am reminded of relay race runners. Cook continues to pace around the track while slowly holding out the baton behind him. Ternus is nearby, running just behind Cook with one hand outstretched. Neither man will stop. The handoff will happen in a few months, with everything still in motion.

The process of finishing the rumored iPhone Ultra (the folding phone) continues as we speak, and Ternus is not going to suddenly pull a Steve Jobs and throw the design into a fish tank, to see if bubbles rise, thus proving they could make it smaller. He won't demand that all plastic be replaced with glass, or even that one more color be added to the mix.

When, as the recent Bloomberg report claims, Ternus said of Apple's design history and appeal to customers, "We’re going to make sure that stays the case,” he's not talking about making huge changes to achieve that goal.

Ternus will stay the course and support Anderson. He may hire more design support and, down the line, Ternus will look for his signature initiative or product; he will want to have his own iPhone or iPod. But that's a natural inclination for any incoming CEO. Job one, though, is staying the course, shepherding the in-the-pipeline products to market and ensuring that Apple remains Apple.

I think Ternus knows exactly how to do that.