Chomping at the bit. Licking their lips. You might use these phrases to describe fans’ eager anticipation to get their hands on OpenAI’s mysterious upcoming device made in collaboration with the legendary former Apple designer Jony Ive — and not just because the fans are restless, but because the little piece of hardware in question sounds like it’ll make your mouth water, too.
At least, that’s according to how OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described it during an interview with Ives at Emerson Collective’s 2025 Demo Day last week.
In a segment of the 30 minute conversation highlighted by Gizmodo, Altman shared some of Ive’s design philosophy, which involves a curious test which basically boils down to the question: would you eat it?
“I remember he said this earlier on,” Altman said of Ive: “‘I know we’ll have the design right when you want to lick it or take a bite out of it.’”
Altman apparently took this to heart.
“There was an earlier prototype that we were like quite excited about, but I did not have any feeling of like ‘I want to pick up that thing and take a bite out of it,” Altman said. “But finally we got there all of a sudden.” (After a pause, Altman then clarified that he did not actually bite the device.)
It’s a rare peek behind the curtain at a device that remains highly secretive. Reports suggest that the OpenAI hardware will be roughly the size of a smartphone, but will crucially be free of screens, relying on cameras, a microphone, and a speaker to interact with users. It’s also rumored to be “always on,” constantly gathering data to build it own “memory” instead of listening to a wake word.
OpenAI’s competitors are undoubtedly watching it like a hawk to see how its device pans out. As a standard bearer for the industry, anything the company does is a big deal, especially as existing attempts to make smart, AI-powered wearables have failed to take off with customers and capture the same hype that chatbots enjoys.
That’s at least one reason it’s being so secretive about its hardware. But another may simply be that its development is running into trouble behind the scenes, according to previous reporting from the Financial Times. One source said that finding a way to stuff enough computing power into the tiny device was a “huge factor” for its lagging development, while another said that the company was also struggling to balance its AI model’s personality. “It can’t be too sycophantic, not too direct, helpful, but doesn’t keep talking in a feedback loop,” the source said.
The design, in any case, is supposed to be simple and bring “some whimsy back,” Altman said during the talk. The vibe is less Times Square, where everything is competing for your attention, and more like “sitting in the most beautiful cabin by a lake and in the mountains and sort of just enjoying the peace and calm,” he added.
“I hope that when people see it, they say, ‘That’s it!?” he teased.
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