2026-07-15 22:44:26
Well, it looks like we won't have to wait for a legal discovery process to uncover what hardware device OpenAI is working on. In what feels awfully like a coordinated leak, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg got a lot of details about what is easiest to describe as an AI-driven smart speaker, but that clearly OpenAI won't frame that way:
OpenAI’s much-anticipated push into consumer devices is slated to begin with a mobile, screen-free smart speaker designed to be a new type of home computer for the AI era, according to people familiar with the matter.
The product — still under development — is meant to serve as a humanlike AI companion that lives in the home, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the project hasn’t been announced. It will help control smart-home appliances, play media, answer questions, respond to messages and tap into the range of capabilities offered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, they said.
None of this is particularly surprising – in fact, it all sounds largely in-line with the product I guessed OpenAI was building immediately after they announced the acquisition of io, Jony Ive's startup. While many assumed the two companies would team up to focus on building an AI wearable device – which were all the rage at the time, led by the ill-fated (and Sam Altman-backed) Humane AI Pin – my guess was, well, more or less what it sounds like they're gearing up to launch.
Back in May 2025, in a piece entitled 'The Anti iPhone', I wrote:
The problem with a full-on wearable in this regard is that everyone focuses far too much on the whole wearable part. That is, the exterior of the device and how it will work on your body. And then: how can I get the technology to work on that? But I suspect that OpenAI/IO are focused on the opposite: what's the best device to use this technology? Why does it have to be wearable?
To be clear, I suspect that whatever the device is, it will look fantastic – this is an Ive/LoveFrom production, after all – but that's mainly because beautiful products bring a sense of delight to users and can spur usage. I suspect the key to the design here will be yes: how it works. And again, I suspect that will be largely based around voice, and perhaps augmented by a camera.
By October of that year, as some details started to trickle out about the direction OpenAI/io was taking, the focus seemed more clear. "A small, screen-less digital companion for you life," I wrote at the time. Another leak in February 2026 nudged us even further in the direction of a smart speaker-like device.
Back to Gurman's report today:
OpenAI’s success in hardware will hinge on bringing a novel approach to the market — something it aims to do with the smart speaker. For instance, the device’s technology is meant to become increasingly personalized and proactive as it gains a deeper understanding of its owner over time, according to the people.
OpenAI envisions the device anticipating needs, surfacing information proactively and serving as an expert on its user, they said. Though the speaker is designed to stay in the home, it will be easy to move around the house.
The key to this device, of course, will be voice. That is, voice-based AI. The writing has been on the wall there since at least the launch of GPT-4o, but if the intent was to be more than simply a better Alexa or HomePod, it felt like a couple more breakthroughs were needed. And what do you know, with the launch of GPT-Live... here we are! As I wrote just last week (which feels like months ago in OpenAI-land):
Anyway, it feels like we're now fully on the cusp of a true shift in computing. Yes, I've long thought this, but it's step-by-step happening. And these new GPT-Live capabilities seem like they're going to unlock the space to the point where new devices may now be not just possible, but inevitable.
For now, these models and capabilities will be awesome to use on smartphones and laptops. While one aspect of the demo that Siri head Mike Rockwell gave during the WWDC keynote was undoubtedly because voice gives a far better demo than text, it also seems pretty clear that we're about to see millions of people out in the wild hitting a button to chat – vocally – with Siri. Finally.
And perhaps those who get really into this method of interaction start to venture into even more robust models such as those offered now by GPT-Live. And perhaps OpenAI leverages those capabilities to launch their own device sometime in the next several months. And perhaps many others follow suit once it's clear that this is a new path forward for computing.
Inevitable, indeed. Back to Gurman:
The device’s communication abilities will rely on a more advanced version of the ChatGPT Voice Mode — GPT-Live — that OpenAI rolled out this month. The new voice mode is designed to act more like a human. It can listen and talk at the same time, adapt more naturally during conversations, and quickly process information.
Though the new product resembles a speaker, OpenAI internally describes it as the first of its kind: a computer built for AI to help make busy people more productive. It includes a camera and other sensors that help it understand a user’s surroundings and context, as well as advanced AI models beyond those available on conventional smart speakers.
But wait, what's that in the room next to this new OpenAI device? It's an elephant! In the form of a lawsuit just filed by Apple against OpenAI. While perhaps not explicitly about this device, it's obviously going to get roped in here. Because what underpins the entire thing is the notion of OpenAI poaching people from Apple and allegedly stealing their IP and trade secrets to bolster OpenAI's fledgling hardware efforts. To quote Apple, "As a natural result, OpenAI's nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."
To hear OpenAI – sorry, Gurman's sources – tell it:
Apple sued OpenAI last week, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets. But OpenAI believes that the device veers significantly from anything Apple has on the market today and that it’s unlikely that it violates trade secrets belonging to the iPhone maker, the people said.
While this would-be device obviously doesn't sound like an iPhone and again, OpenAI is going to frame this very differently than a smart speaker such as the aforementioned HomePod, lawsuit aside, that general space now feels like yesterday's technology because of the previous success of Alexa and the like – still, there are likely going to be some overlaps. The question will be just how many and if any of them crossed the chasm in the alleged information taken from Apple.
Of course, that may also take years to uncover, depending on if/when this actually goes to trial. And that's why Apple is seeking injunctions to stop OpenAI from using their IP right now. So even these next few months are going to be interesting...
And wait, while everyone seems to be focused in on the possibility that OpenAI would infringe Apple's known products, what if this is all really about the unknown/unreleased ones? Certainly the lawsuit makes it clear that the "show and tell" of prototypes was key – i.e. they weren't bringing iPhones to those meetings (allegedly).
In fact, reading today's report, I'm reminded of not just the tabletop/mounted 'FacePod'/'HomePad' that has been rumored for years – and likely delayed by Apple's AI woes – but other potential products that Apple's own published research papers have uncovered. Even better, a video.
In February 2025, I wrote about "Apple's Elegantly Expressive Pixar Lamp":
I don't know that this will be the first such robotic product that Apple launches. It sounds like the first could be a bit more stationery. But this is one that I would bet that Apple will try to launch at some point in the next few years. The only real question is if they'll be allowed to call it "Luxo" or the like. If Steve Jobs were still with us, absolutely that would have happened. Will Disney greenlight Apple using their IP given the Jobs legacy? I mean, you'd have to imagine Bob Iger would see it as a branding win/win, but will Iger still be around at that point?...
Forget the HomePod, or even 'HomePad' (again, this OpenAI device has no screen), this is the device that immediately jumped to my mind. It's a simple robot meant to bring joy and delight into a home by way of expressive actions driven by AI. Apple, of course, didn't have the voice chops to make it work at the time, but now, thanks to Google, they probably do! So I can't help but wonder how much overlap there is between whatever OpenAI is trying to do with this first device and what Apple is doing within their labs... That, I imagine, may be the key to all of this.
At the same time, as I noted the other day, even if OpenAI is worried about any of this – and again, they're telegraphing that they're not – they may feel the need to push forward anyway. This hardware initiative is that important to the future of the company. And I suspect that Ive's team will have built something super compelling:
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 goal is for the device to feel like a companion and become a physical manifestation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
A cute tabletop robot that does your email for you? Sign me up.
2026-07-15 17:10:31
Email. Why did it have to be email?
The bane of our existence is also the bane of Apple's and OpenAI's. I'm not saying what seems to be a mix-up conveyed across the protocol would have stopped the lawsuit between the two, but were the sides actually able to connect in a civil and more humane manner – like, say, over the phone – it may have de-escalated tensions before they reached a boiling point.
An unrequited message from Apple to OpenAI is framed as a kicking off point for the whole situation in Apple's own filing. Obviously, it's meant to showcase an effort of good faith on Apple's part to resolve the matter. But it was curious that Apple said that OpenAI never responded. I focused in on this as odd in my post on the topic a couple days ago:
As for timing, it would seem sort of wild that Apple knew about Liu having some level of access to what they viewed as their information in February 2026 (a couple weeks after his departure to start at OpenAI) but didn't bring about this lawsuit until nearly six months later. While they note that they reached out to OpenAI about a potential issue (and never heard back), it's not clear who at OpenAI they reached out to (nor is it clear who at Apple reached out). Was it simply to Liu himself or someone else? Was it a low-level "heads up" ping between IT departments or something that was elevated much higher? This may remain unclear until/if there's actual discovery.
Well, now it's more clear who reached out to whom between the two thanks to reporting by David Ingram for NBC News:
Apple alleged in a lawsuit last week that OpenAI “never responded” to its concerns this year about what Apple believed was trade secret theft. But emails reviewed by NBC News show that’s not the full story: OpenAI did respond in February to Apple’s initial outreach. The communications became bogged down and, according to OpenAI, abruptly stopped after an outside attorney representing Apple mixed up the names and email addresses of two OpenAI employees who had the last names Wang and Chang.
All that is to say, Apple's email did find OpenAI well!
Well, not well. Because the note (from Apple's outside counsel) clearly led to a back-and-forth that ultimately pissed off both sides. To be fair, that's pretty standard for email – especially between lawyers. And yes, this all seems a bit silly. But clearly someone – obviously likely OpenAI – sent the emails to NBC in an attempt to show that Apple is being disingenuous at best in their accusations. And setting the stage that they're perhaps even lying about at least one element!
It is weird that Apple explicitly notes in their lawsuit that OpenAI did not respond to that February outreach when they clearly did. But I imagine Apple would argue semantics here, that OpenAI perhaps never responded to the actual issue: the Apple access/information/property that the former Apple/current OpenAI employee, Chang Liu, had. (Aside: I'm confused by the notion that Apple is said to have mixed up the last names of the employees, when Chang is the first name of a central figure here? Are there other employees here or is that itself a mix up?)
Will OpenAI try to argue that Apple was simply asking about the wrong person so they had no obligation to look into it? Clearly there was a back-and-forth that led to Apple's outside counsel apologizing for mixing up the names. But did OpenAI really use that as pretense to simply stop any communication on the topic?
To add another wrinkle to this, OpenAI has now elaborated on their initial, comically simple comment on the matter that, "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets." (Um, of course they ave interest! That doesn't mean they want to steal them, but suggesting they're not interesting is funny.) The new statement, given to Bloomberg has a bit more meat on the bone:
"While we take these allegations seriously, we’re not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit. We believe in fair competition and allowing people the freedom to work wherever they choose, and we’re focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere."
There's a lot going on there in such a short statement. "We're not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit" is just the sort of semantics gymnastics you would expect from a statement actually cleared by lawyers. That's not to say there's not any evidence, they're simply not aware of it, you see. And the evidence they're talking about is not necessarily about the alleged crime itself, but rather for the complaint. All technicalities, of course, but all undoubtedly framed that way on purpose.
The bit about the "freedom to work wherever they choose" is all about framing this as Apple trying to stifle the free movement of people between companies – a problematic practice that the company has a long, contentious history with.1 As I wrote in my post, this will be a key point because both companies are based in California.
Speaking of, the sheer number of people who have moved from Apple to OpenAI would seemingly help make Apple's case here. Would a jury buy that so many people leaving from one company to another wasn't a coordinated effort? That itself wouldn't be illegal – thanks California for no non-competes/non-solicitation rules – but how/why those people came over with regard to IP and trade secrets would obviously be at play here. I mean, that's more or less the entire case!
OpenAI is likely to frame this as Apple simply being pissed off about the AI startup poaching so many of their employees – 400+! – though given the evidence Apple seemingly has against at least Liu, I'm not sure how well that will actually hold up. But perhaps the argument is used to help the other defendant, Tang Tan?
Anyway, yes, email will be front and center to all of this. Not just the back-and-forth between lawyers, but it will obviously be key if the case progresses to the point of discovery. Apple already divulged they have some potentially problematic emails from Tan and others. We're undoubtedly going to get a lot more – on both sides!
Let this be a lesson to us all: never email.
1 I actually had a scoop back in 2009 that Apple and Google had agreed not to poach each others workers, something they had settle with the DoJ over (and agree no longer to do), alongside four other companies, back in 2010. ↩
2026-07-14 19:04:41
While the high-level itself is interesting – that Apple is seemingly doubling and tripling down on the AI aspects of their Apple Silicon efforts – one part of Gurman's newsletter this week stood out:
Apple had been planning major neural-processing upgrades for the M7 family and ultimately decided those improvements were important enough to justify accelerating the next generation rather than completing the M6 lineup. Those changes go into high gear with the M7 Ultra. I’m told the processor dramatically upgrades AI performance, bringing it closer to the class of dedicated AI accelerators such as Nvidia Corp.’s Blackwell.
Uh, is this suggesting that Apple is about to make a chip that's comparable to the chips that are fueling the Age of AI and have turned NVIDIA into the most valuable (and profitable and perhaps important) company in the world? Well, no, not exactly.
If I'm reading Gurman's (too-simplistic) line correctly, I believe it just suggests that the M7 Ultra may have performance that's comparable in some ways with NVIDIA's Blackwell. Which chip? Unclear, there's the B100 and B200 model, as well as other variants like the 'GB 200 Superchip' which is a GPU paired with a 'Grace' CPU. It's undoubtedly not about to touch the actual Blackwell racks that NVIDIA sells – which run from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars – but still, just matching the chips would be impressive for AI workflows.
Specifically, he also undoubtedly means inference (seemingly hence "accelerators") and not training of AI models, as again, there's almost no way for a "single" chip (even two or more fused together as Apple does with their 'Ultra' models) to match the processing power of what NVIDIA's systems can offer. The power required alone (see also: every headline about data center power consumption) would make this a completely unfair comparison. As would the current state of memory bandwidth between the two types of chips – which stands at about an order of magnitude difference, which also obviously matters for token generation, I might add!
That said, because Apple's chips use unified memory, they actually do have a potential inherent advantage here for running AI models. The problem has been that the amount of memory they utilize is just so much smaller than what NVIDIA's overall systems call to, so it has historically only been good for smaller, local models (see also: Apple's Siri AI hybrid strategy). But if the M7 Ultra is able to jack up available memory to 1.5TB as the story mentions, that could very well compete with a Blackwell when in comes to inference for LLMs.
But even with the current memory crunch issues aside – and those may very well not even be alleviated by the time such a chip is ready – the huge caveat here is that this M7 Ultra chip is slated to launch in 2028. Blackwell is doing all of this in 2026 and it's not like NVIDIA is sitting still. They already have their next generation of chips seemingly ready to roll and then will presumably have a generation after that ready to roll too. Further, the AI labs are also not sitting still and so today's state of the art models are likely to be quite a bit larger in 2028 too...
Anyway, my point is that this almost throwaway sentence sounds insanely impressive – and it would be in many ways – but there's also likely quite a bit of nuance to it.
Still, if Apple is this focused on ramping up AI capabilities for their chips, it is fair to wonder if this won't be yet another huge advantage the company has in the future thanks to Apple Silicon. Again, Apple is clearly already focused on the hybrid approach of doing some AI work on-device while offloading the bigger stuff to the cloud. If they can bring more and more of that work on device...
And that mixed with the current trend of companies balking at the AI compute costs and mixed with the notion that perhaps some of their frontier models are increasingly going to be paired (or distilled) down because they're overkill for a lot of AI workloads... and yeah, Apple could be sitting pretty in a few years.
Perhaps also why NVIDIA is building their own AI PC chips in the form of 'RTX Spark' alongside Microsoft. The battleground changes but the combatants remain the same...
One more thing: the above is obviously all about computer-grade chips, but what about servers?
The chip may also ultimately be the basis of a coming overhaul to the AI server strategy. Apple plans to soon deploy a more powerful server based on the M5 Ultra under the internal code name J246, but engineers are already developing another new server chip for launch by 2029 that is built around the M7 Ultra’s capabilities.
This, of course, points to a world in which Apple doesn't need to rely on Google Cloud (running NVIDIA chips, no less) for that offloaded work. But might it also point to another world in which Apple, like Google and Amazon before them, start selling their chips to others to use? Or what about their own actual 'Apple Cloud' business? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, but everyone is doing it these days...
2026-07-14 01:00:53
Have you heard? Apple is suing OpenAI. While I think my initial quick reaction after the Friday news dump remains correct at the highest level, having now read the full 40-page document, there's also – as expected – clearly a bit more nuance to the situation. Namely, while Apple frames OpenAI – or at least its fledgling hardware division – as "rotten to its core" (interesting terminology!), they really only have a case against two and maybe three individuals. But they also clearly believe that if this case goes to trial, they will have a case against a lot more.
That is to say, it's a fairly standard legal document. It's well-written, narratively, and fairly concise, but it still is very much making a one-sided argument in grandiose terms. That's the job to be done here. But in reading it, augmented by some of the reporting around the suit, you can start to see the contours of reality.
With the usual caveat that I'm not a lawyer and the allegations still remain just that, allegations, to which the other side has not responded beyond boilerplate ("We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets."), here's my current read of the situation...
First and foremost, again, if the allegations are true, Chang Liu, the former Senior System Electrical Engineer at Apple and now a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI, is in a lot of trouble. At the very least, it seems safe to assume that he won't be working for OpenAI any longer. The real question would seem to be what kind of penalty he would face. The parallels to the Anthony Levandowski situation after he left Google for Uber have been drawn. Obviously, he was far more senior and high profile of a person than Liu is, still, the fact that he was sentenced to prison (before being pardoned by President Trump) for his actions is, well, not a great precedent for Liu. Again, they are just allegations at the moment, but Apple also would seem to have the receipts – many of them – because of the use of Apple-owned hardware for many actions.
It is interesting that Apple is not suing Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, who is named in the suit as a co-conspirator with Liu while she was still employed at Apple, before she also subsequently went to work at OpenAI. Is it possible she's cooperating or has cooperated with Apple in this investigation? Or that they hope she will in any would-be trial? Pure speculation, of course, but an interesting wrinkle given the receipts Apple also seemingly has there.
As for Tang Tan, the other named defendant here, Apple's case feels more nebulous. It seems pretty obvious that they weren't looking into his actions until after they came upon the Liu situation and subsequently found a few things, likely in scouring their systems for Liu-related information, that they felt they could use to bring a case against him as well. Including, most notably, allegedly emailing himself partner information before he left Apple and apparently asking would-be recruits to bring proprietary and potentially confidential information – including prototype hardware?! – to "show and tells".
This is not a great look under any circumstance, but perhaps especially not when you've already been accused of something similar by another company!
More murky would seem to be the endless talk of using Apple's internal codenames for projects to lure both recruits and partners into divulging confidential information – as if the codename was some sort of password that unlocks such details.
Anyway, the fact that Tan was an extremely high profile vice president at Apple and is now the most important person on OpenAI's hardware side (since Jony Ive is not technically a full-time employee) makes him both an obvious and key target here. Even if these allegations are found to be untrue or embellished, can he reasonably stay at OpenAI now? And perhaps that's the real outcome Apple is looking for here, as they clearly frame him as the ringleader of the 400-plus people who have come over to OpenAI from Apple.
Cut off the head of the snake and... chill the body to ensure the snake stops growing.
Speaking of, the sheer number of people who have moved from Apple to OpenAI would seemingly help make Apple's case here. Would a jury buy that so many people leaving from one company to another wasn't a coordinated effort? That itself wouldn't be illegal – thanks California for no non-competes/non-solicitation rules – but how/why those people came over with regard to IP and trade secrets would obviously be at play here. I mean, that's more or less the entire case!
And of course, the true leader of that movement is undoubtedly the aforementioned Ive in the eyes of many. Given the history of Ive and Apple, no matter the tensions, it's simply hard to imagine them ever going after their former – quite literal – knight. The optics of it alone would be hugely damaging to both brands. At the same time, it would be hard to believe that Ive would do anything so blatant to try to hurt Apple. Sure, he may want to compete to combat some of what he feels like he wrought with the iPhone, but it's just hard to see him doing something as nefarious as knowingly taking or directing others to effectively steal from Apple. Maybe that's naive, but again, Ive is not even mentioned in the suit.
Tan, on the other hand, perhaps had a reputation for "flying too close to the sun" while at Apple, as Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is reporting around the lawsuit. Perhaps even more intriguing is the notion that some felt he should have gotten the head of hardware role that John Ternus ultimately landed which, of course, has now vaulted him into the CEO-in-waiting role. So yeah, that's an interesting rivalry dynamic here!
As for timing, it would seem sort of wild that Apple knew about Liu having some level of access to what they viewed as their information in February 2026 (a couple weeks after his departure to start at OpenAI) but didn't bring about this lawsuit until nearly six months later. While they note that they reached out to OpenAI about a potential issue (and never heard back), it's not clear who at OpenAI they reached out to (nor is it clear who at Apple reached out). Was it simply to Liu himself or someone else? Was it a low-level "heads up" ping between IT departments or something that was elevated much higher? This may remain unclear until/if there's actual discovery.
But again, the fact that Apple didn't bring the lawsuit immediately suggests that either they didn't view it as a big deal at the time (perhaps they didn't know the full scope) or that they felt the need to build a case. To that end, Apple's statement to CNBC that "Recently, significant evidence has emerged..." could go either way.
It may be a bit too conspiratorial to wonder if Apple waited until the OpenAI IPO preparations were in process and/or the first hardware product development was far enough along for the timing here. But I mean, there's certainly a world in which these allegations sidetrack one or both things – if not outright torpedo them.
To that end, OpenAI's best path may be to figure out if there's a way to get Apple to settle here quickly. And that may be tough. While they did eventually drop their lawsuit against Gerard Williams III, the former employee who went on to start Nuvia to compete with Apple Silicon, they did so after three years. And they also seemingly didn't have the case that they do at least against Liu here. And again, the real key to that may not be Liu himself here, but unlocking a discovery process that unearths who-knows-what-else. If nothing else, it would certainly unearth what OpenAI is actually building hardware-wise!
Then again, Apple undoubtedly already knows that. After all, OpenAI is seemingly using some of the same suppliers per the lawsuit! And perhaps even some of the same materials, the proprietary nature of one in particular is sort of humorously focused in on in the suit – a "trade secret metal-finishing technique" that OpenAI allegedly tricked one of Apple's suppliers into doing for them!
But there, what Apple really might want to know about is if/when OpenAI intends to build a phone – or phone-like device. And if, as reported, they are, perhaps with those 400+ people who worked on the most popular consumer electronics device in history while at Apple, well, there may be a whole other can of worms there. Again, depending on what any discovery would unearth.
Sam Altman, of course, is no stranger to such discovery, but can he really sit through more depositions with more of his emails and text messages shown to the world casting him in an embarrassing (or worse) light? It just depends, I guess! The extent to which he's involved in any of the above – and clearly he's been front and center with OpenAI's hardware efforts alongside Ive – could be the latest in a string of not great situations to be in, to put it mildly.
It's also, of course, the latest not great situation for OpenAI itself to be in.
Regardless, if Apple really does intend to fully go through with this trial (remember that they'd be subject to discovery as well, something the famously secretive company has not historically liked in the past either), it presumably wouldn't happen until sometime next year at the earliest, and perhaps even later. Though hearings around injunctions Apple is requesting would happen far sooner. And all of that paints a picture where OpenAI may not be able to launch said hardware on their intended roadmap of later this year or early next.
Might that suggest that Apple is actually worried about what OpenAI intends to launch here? I mean, maybe! Again, they have 400+ of their former people working on it. But at the very least, they simply must view it as strategic to slow-down a would-be competitor. Apple would never say that out loud, of course. But come on. Does Cupertino want to compete against a new Jony Ive-designed product in the market? If nothing else, again, it's a bad look for them, optically!
That isn't a reason to launch such a lawsuit, but OpenAI gave them a reason! 400+ of them actually! And while it may or may not be just one or two employees acting on their own, the (now widely reported) fact that OpenAI was said to be considering their own lawsuit against Apple around the failure of their ChatGPT/Siri partnership could not have helped matters!1 Again, that was apparently happening in between Apple alerting OpenAI about a potential breach and this lawsuit being filed. That's why I said at the time that it was probably fairly stupid for OpenAI to poke the bear. But they did, and now the bear has woken up and is pissed off!
So again, upon full reading of the lawsuit, the nuance seems more clear but there are also some real remaining questions. Questions which only the discovery process and/or the actual trial would uncover. There are a least a half dozen reasons why OpenAI would seemingly want/need to settle such a case ahead of such a trial, but it certainly doesn't seem like Apple intends to do that right now! At the very least, it's going to bog OpenAI down for the next several months – and potentially years – and cast a shadow over the hardware side of the house.
Even if all the allegations are unfounded, this uncertainty will undoubtedly make some would-be partners question any allegiances. And it may send OpenAI back to the literal drawing board to ensure any hardware isn't touching anything close to IP that Apple controls.
So yeah, none of that seems great for OpenAI and their hardware prospects. And that's not great because it's perhaps the key differentiator they were hoping to have against the other frontier labs. Maybe that forces them to storm ahead anyway, at which point those injunction hearings will be awfully important...
It remains just wild that it has come to this. Just two years ago, Apple was using their biggest stage to tout ChatGPT and the partnership with OpenAI. Now it's all lawsuits, allegations, and name-calling. Rotten, indeed.
Update July 14, 2026: Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is reporting that despite the lawsuit, OpenAI intends to move forward with their first device – at least for now. Again, let's see what happens with any injunctions...
Update July 15, 2026: But their emails...
And their hardware...
1 I suppose it's good that Apple doesn't have a representative on OpenAI's board – let alone an investment in the company – as was nearly the case a couple years ago! Then again, such an equity stake may have led to an easier path to ease tensions, just ask Microsoft! ↩
2026-07-13 06:22:00
I can now confirm, the pubs were in fact crazy on Saturday night as I watched my Conflicted Cup – aka, the World Cup semifinal between England and Norway (I, of course, live in England but my maternal heritage is full-on Norwegian). It was close, but England pulled it out in the end – an end that occurred shortly before 1am local time, which was especially fun.
Anyway, while there was a sports angle of my usual tech talk with Alex Kantrowitz this month thanks to the VAR situation in said World Cup, for the most part, we stick to tech. Namely, 'The Summer of Super Apps', which ended up being a timely chat since just days later, we got the first such app in the form of OpenAI's updated – but hardly upgraded – version of ChatGPT.
Spoiler alert: it's a mess.
So do we really believe Microsoft will be able to pull this off? I mean, at least they're coming at it from a place where they needed to change their strategy, OpenAI runs a real risk here of ceding the consumer space – the area of AI they've unquestionably dominated to date – potentially to Meta or even Apple! At the same time, OpenAI clearly feels the need to combat Anthropic and so it's hardly surprising that the new ChatGPT looks a lot like the Claude Mac app. Well, it is surprising in that it's sort of a UI nightmare when we're used to OpenAI making actually delightful product experiences, for the most part. Everyone is also chasing the notion, if not exactly the product, of OpenClaw for agentic AI.
Meanwhile, Google, which rather remarkably feels behind again at the moment, still has the biggest surfaces to naturally insert AI (well, more naturally than Meta at least, whose user base will undoubtedly largely reject such insertion). Is it wild to think that Google may turn to Chrome not just to spur Gemini usage (which they've been doing, of course) but to turn it into the "Super App"? Would they dare?! Talk about risk – from both the user base and regulators!
Does 'Bring Your Own AI' come into play in all this? That could be a new can of worms!
Apple, though, does suddenly feel well positioned again. Perhaps best positioned even! Thanks, of course, to the iPhone. It sort of feels like we're going to see a lot of people over the next year transition into a mode where they walk around and talk to Siri – actually talk to her, not yell at her, angry with her previously poor responses. But here OpenAI may have a real opportunity thanks to their focus on superior voice-based AI. You'd think that's an opening for a new product category – or categories – but well, there's a potential new massive hiccup there as of a couple days ago.
Also, don't sleep on "Visual Intelligence".
If it all plays out this way, Apple will obviously feel very good about their CapEx strategy. Which is to say, they'd be positioned well in AI without having spent hundreds of billions of dollars. And it's sort of starting to feel like Microsoft is moving more in this direction too. Or, at least, focusing on finding paths towards cheaper AI – both for themselves and for their user base.
Lastly, stick around for Alex's VAR rant – are we trusting the robots too much and literally taking the fun and majesty out of the game?
2026-07-11 05:35:41
We all know the old saying "don't poke the bear." Less well known is the follow up: "because he might rip your fucking throat out." OpenAI, it seems, may be about to learn this lesson the hard way.
To be clear and fair, I have not seen the lawsuit Apple has filed against OpenAI alleging stolen trade secrets. Nor am I a lawyer. But I do like to think I know Apple fairly well after a couple decades writing about and reporting on the company. And around these parts, I've watched OpenAI fairly closely these past few years. My gut instinct here would be that there's no way Apple files such a lawsuit unless they think they have a strong case on what they're alleging.
I mean, you don't have to be close to the companies at all the sense this: they were, and in fact still are, partners! I mean, this is about to make OpenAI and Microsoft look like the greatest love story of all time. Or at least The Notebook. The Elon Musk situation, yeah it's complicated. Maybe it's like Past Lives or Marriage Story. But now the OpenAI and Apple relationship suddenly looks like Fatal Attraction.
I mean, my god.
The allegations are, um, not great. I'm honestly not even sure where to begin. CNBC seems to have a good summary of key parts of the filing so far:
Apple alleged that OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, who is a former Apple vice president, has directed Apple employees interviewing at OpenAI to share Apple secrets as part of the interviewing process. Tan is named as a defendant in the suit.
“He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring ‘actual parts’ from Apple to their interviews for ‘show and tell’ sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information,” Apple said in the filing.
Apple alleged that OpenAI coached departing Apple employees in how to evade security processes when leaving the iPhone maker, and that Chang Liu, a former employee who joined OpenAI, stole an Apple laptop. Liu is named as a defendant in the suit.
While Jony Ive is not mentioned in the suit, Tan is just about as high-profile as they come in terms of former Apple folks outside of the SVP level. Which is to say, these are very serious allegations against a very senior person – someone who spent 24 years at Apple.
So why now? I mean, this is clearly a Friday news dump – this crossed the wires just after the market closed. But it also seems timely:
“Recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple’s secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes, and products,” an Apple representative told CNBC in a statement.
It all reads a bit as if Apple has been building up evidence of these allegations for some time and recently got their smoking gun. It's not just nebulous "trade secrets" either, there are specific mentions down to "metal finishing techniques" that Apple apparently invented and protected.
It also comes a little less than a month after OpenAI was rumored to be threatening Apple with a lawsuit over the perceived failure of their deal to bake ChatGPT into the iPhone. As I wrote at the time, even just that threat was clearly not going to go over well in Cupertino. If you're say, upset over Apple's new deal with Google around AI, this is not the way to air your grievances with this particular company. I went on to note:
Just for fun, let's go ahead and layer in a few more things.
First, Apple probably doesn't love the fact that OpenAI acquired the Jony Ive-founded io with the notion of building products that would break the chains that the iPhone has placed upon us. But they really can't love the fact that the team keeps poaching key Apple talent to help with such efforts.
And what if some of those people are also working on an actual iPhone competitor in the form of a phone, or a smartphone-like device?
I'm not saying that's the reason Apple may not have been as receptive to reworking any deal with OpenAI, but I'm saying that if there were such discussions, that dynamic probably didn't help matters!
Again, you poke the bear... it's a fucking bear. It's a move that seemingly so stupid that perhaps OpenAI was well aware that Apple was looking into all of the above and decided to try to get ahead of it? To what end? I don't know. Even with that in mind, it would be pretty stupid.
But even without their own threats of litigation, what did OpenAI think was going to happen when they poached so many folks from Apple – over 400?! – to work under the guidance of Ive no less? At best, Apple was going to hate them. At worst, well, this.
Speaking of, if any of these allegations are even partially true, it's hard to believe Tan or Liu or anyone at OpenAI could possibly be so stupid? Again, this is one side's allegations, and there's always going to be some level of moderation in what actually happened, but... I mean, either these allegations happened or they didn't?
And if they did. I mean, I keep saying "I mean" because I mean, beyond Tan and Liu, OpenAI itself would seemingly be in real trouble. Potential damages aside, this could sidetrack their hardware aspirations for months, if not years. Possibly forever. And seemingly just as they got the right software in place to make such things sing.
This would also, of course, not be a great look for the leadership of OpenAI. Yet another controversy and yet another messy divorce from yet another Big Tech trillion-dollar behemoth. If OpenAI isn't running out of friends, they're running out of people who would potentially work with them. They better hope these allegations are unfounded. But, I mean, this is Apple. And this is Apple going after the highest profile AI startup in the world. A partner of theirs, no less.
“This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” the company said in a legal filing.
I mean...
Update July 13, 2026: Some further thoughts having now fully read the lawsuit...
Update July 15, 2026: But their emails...
And hardware...