There Is No Phone
OpenAI is not building a phone. Amazon is not building a phone. And now SpaceX is not building a phone. Are you sensing a trend?
The trend is that basically the entire tech industry is rumored to once again be building their own smartphones. But they're all denying it. But all of the denials sound misdirecting at best and misleading at worst. Because of course they should be building such a device. As should Meta (again). And Microsoft (again). And everyone else who aims to control their own destiny. Because right now, Apple, and to a lesser extent, Google, does. And that's going to continue, perhaps well into the Age of AI.1
So the argument is really one of semantics. OpenAI isn't building a phone, they're building... something else. Amazon isn't building a phone, they're building... something else. SpaceX isn't building a phone...
Because is the iPhone even really a phone anymore? Sure, it was one of Steve Jobs' key pillars for the device when he famously announced it 20 years ago. But these days, it would be a distant third when it comes to those original marquee features of the iPhone, well after the internet and media functionality. Honestly, were the iPhone announced today, it probably wouldn't even make the keynote. It would be one of those little features they flash up on a slide at the very end of each segment.
The iPhone Fold/Ultra is just going to further drive this point home, one imagines. Is that a phone in your pocket or... a folded up iPad? A computer?
But the phone element needed to be central to that original keynote because it was going to replace the device that people had in their pockets, be it a smartphone or a dumb phone. I mean, it's right there in the name! These days, any new device would aim to replace the iPhone. And again, the iPhone is no longer really a phone. So does it really make sense to work on yet another smartphone?
You're not going to be able to dislodge the iPhone without doing what Apple did in 2007 by making a device that's so far and away better than the current devices that it immediately obsoletes whatever the previous devices were. And that's... insanely hard to do! And yet it happens over and over again in the history of technology.
So each of these companies is now aiming to try to do just that by leveraging AI as the breakthrough that they hope will obsolete the iPhone. But they can't come out and say that, because that sounds ridiculous. So instead, they fall back to the misdirection off of the assumption that they're trying to build a smartphone. No one is building a new smartphone just like Apple wasn't building a flip phone in 2007.
Instead, what they're all undoubtedly building is a newfangled connected device which perhaps carries some core functionality of a current smartphone but is aiming for "what's next".
The problem, of course, is that the smartphone is now far beyond that phone capability and is so integral in peoples' lives in ways big and small. From photos to commerce, the table stakes have raised to the point where perhaps the only real play to start is to build a device that's tangential to the iPhone.
And that's exactly what no less than Sam Altman of OpenAI and Panos Panay of Amazon have talked about. They may still be aiming to replace the smartphone eventually – because again, no one wants to be beholden to Apple forever, obviously – but they know there's not really a viable path to do that right now. And so instead, the goal is to play the game on the field and work with the iPhone, hoping to seem symbiotic while actually being parasitic.
Apple, obviously, is wise to that notion. And so they're going to have their own range of such devices. Devices that will undoubtedly be able to play with the iPhone in ways that third parties cannot. And so Android is the path that the other players will all likely explore, unless regulators step in to force Apple's ecosystem to be more "open".
Of course, Amazon went down the Android path before. So did Meta. Even Microsoft has! Nothing has worked to dislodge the iPhone. So that's perhaps the most interesting element of last week's report by Raffaele Huang and Patience Haggin of The Wall Street Journal about SpaceX showing off some sort of device prototype to investors:
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has developed a prototype for a handset-like device designed to reshape how humans interact with artificial intelligence that SpaceX has shown investors recently.
The rocket and AI company showed the prototype, which features a sleek design that is slimmer than an iPhone, to some investors and other stakeholders ahead of the company’s mega initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.
The prototype was designed to run on a proprietary operating system and integrate AI technology from SpaceX’s xAI, some of the people said. The device would use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, they said.
The report is couched with the notion that whatever was shown was extremely early – to the point where it may or may not ever be actually made. And yes, Elon Musk nebulously denied the report – of course he denies things all the time right up until they happen, just as Steve Jobs used to do! But SpaceX/SpaceXAI is going to build some type of device eventually – this has long been obvious – it's Elon Musk, he thrives in the world of atoms far more so than bits. Even if it's just some sort of precursor/eventual peripheral for Optimus, we're clearly going to get something.
To me, that "proprietary operating system" may seemingly be the key to the whole project. Well that and Starlink, of course. Now that is something Apple has never had: their own wireless network.
To that end, the fact that Amazon is moving their Fire TV platform away from Android to their own proprietary OS is interesting. Could that also presage work on whatever devices they're cooking up? The fact that they too are launching their own satellite network – with Apple as an early customer, no less – is certainly interesting!
We'll see how OpenAI handles their device(s). Would Jony Ive dare explore Android? You have to believe they're going to have their own OS as well,2 perhaps one more built around voice?
So yes, no one is building a smartphone.3 But everyone is busy building a device that they hope will eventually replace the smartphone. Including Apple, just as they built the device that not only replaced the dumb phones (and first smartphones) but the iPod as well. Yet no one wants to talk about it because it's an impossible task. And unlike with the iPhone in 2007, it's going to require the current crop of smartphones to hang around for the foreseeable future.
Until one day, there will be no more smartphone. Just as today, there is no phone.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 In some ways, how quickly (or not) AI moves to the "edge" – to actual devices – may be key to all of this. Apple is obviously betting big on that. But OpenAI might be as well. Might we see NVIDIA make a move here too? ↩
2 Meanwhile, while Meta's Horizon OS for Quest headsets is an Android variant, the smartglasses seemingly run their own software stack, including the newer Display models leveraging open web technologies. Samsung's upcoming Galaxy glasses are going to use a variant of Android XR, it seems. Oddly, Microsoft's AI device initiative, Project Solara, runs not on Windows but... Android! ↩
3 Well, Donald Trump is? And how's that working out? ↩
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