Spyglass Modify

2026-07-20 06:32:15

As bad as things may be product-wise (not to mention potentially legally?) at OpenAI at the moment with the stumbling out of the gate of the ChatGPT super crap “Super App”, it could be worse. It could be Google. A company which not only lacks a “Super App” but lacks a true frontier model at the moment.

It wasn't a great look when Google I/O came and went in May without Gemini 3.5 Pro. But far worse was that Sundar Pichai said on stage that the flagship model would be coming next month (which Google echoed in a blog post). That would have been June. It's now the end of July. Google says the model is still in testing but it's now not just "not a great look", it's a bad look. This is a $4.2T company seemingly unable to compete with several far smaller players. But worse is that this is after the company already moved heaven and earth once to get out of their own way to effectively compete in AI. And it worked. They had caught up or perhaps even surpassed everyone else.

The timely analogy would be to England going up 1-0 on Argentina and then... shifting to a defensive strategy and getting run over as Argentina stormed on to the World Cup final.

But whereas a few years ago, the problem seemed to be just as much about timidity – that is, Google had much of the technology ready to roll internally (as you might hope given their central role in inventing the ideas behind LLMs), they were just afraid to release it – now it seems firmly rooted in bureaucracy:

The delay has been a source of frustration for Google engineers, AI researchers and managers, many of whom are concerned the company risks losing an edge in the market as rivals Anthropic and OpenAI produce models that exceed Gemini’s capabilities, according to 10 current and former employees. Google has multiple layers of stakeholders involved in preparing models for release, working to weave AI across a vast product portfolio, including search, maps and YouTube, which can cause delays, said the people, who declined to be named discussing internal concerns.

Of course, that's also nothing new at Google. That's largely what was blamed for the 'Bard' fiasco. You know, Google's first attempt to catch up with ChatGPT. That stumble was seemingly only corrected when DeepMind and Google Brain were united under one leader, Demis Hassabis, with a single, unified vision for AI.

But it seems like, as was the case for OpenAI, coding sort of blindsided them. Pichai said as much after I/O that Google was behind in this regard, which must have been a particularly embarrassing thing to admit for the company. But whereas OpenAI was seemingly able to course-correct quickly with Codex, Google has seemingly not been able to. Perhaps it's as simple as one of those big company versus small company dynamics, where being more nimble actually matters more than pure resources.

Then again, resources also seem to matter here quite a bit:

Google’s popular products are a gateway to generative AI for everyday people, and can yield data that makes their answers smarter. But encouraging leadership of every department to move in the same direction is like trying to boil an ocean, one ex-employee said. When mandates shift or efforts end up duplicated in multiple departments, it gets even more difficult to maintain a cohesive strategy, current and former employees said. It’s also a challenge for any one offering to get the resources it would need to succeed, and to gain traction in the market, they said.

I mean, Google probably should hope it's that simple and not as bad as the Llama situation for Meta, as there are definitely shades here of the "Behemoth" model of Llama 4 which was perpetually promised but never came. And soon, Llama itself was put out to pasture. There are no real signals of that here, but well, there are signs that other things are amiss internally at Google at the moment.

After the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 sparked concerns that Google’s search engine would become obsolete, the company declared a “code red” — a useful tactic for cutting through the layers of bureaucracy and internal competition that often slow Google’s product efforts. But now, racing in AI is the normal state of the company, one employee said.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin and others were advocating for Google to move faster to seize opportunities in AI coding, but their efforts were slowed by competing factions within the company, two former employees said. Cloud computing unit Google Cloud, research lab Google DeepMind and the team behind the Android operating system are all building AI coding tools for developers, with involvement from some consumer product teams, too, people familiar with the work said.

Yeah, this is Highlander, not chat apps, Google. There can be only one. Or, if you prefer another movie analogy, it's clearly time to unite the clans. Again.

Google's earnings report is certainly set up to be interesting this week.

2026-07-17 18:18:29

Let's give OpenAI some credit, once they realize they made a mistake, they act quickly to correct it. Today's case in point: with an update, ChatGPT now features ChatGPT once again. No, that's not a joke, and yes, it does speak to a very obvious self-own.

To quickly recap: the strangest thing about the "Super App" update to ChatGPT a week ago was that they completely buried the actual chat functionality. It was shoved into the sidebar and made into a sub-feature of the service. A service which, mind you, was still called ChatGPT. But instead of that brand front-and-center, the new app launched into something confusingly called 'ChatGPT Work'. As it turned out, ChatGPT Work wasn't ChatGPT for Work, but OpenAI's Claude Cowork competitor. And even though this new app was clearly an extension and expansion of Codex, their Claude Code competitor, that too was now a secondary option.

There were several other UI issues to boot – and many of those remain. But first and foremost, OpenAI just needed to make this new ChatGPT app far less confusing and jarring to actually use. And now they have: gone is 'ChatGPT Work' front and center at start, back is simply 'ChatGPT' with our old, trusted chatbox asking you to simply 'Message ChatGPT'.

To be clear, 'Work' is still there, but it's now a secondary tab in that main ChatGPT area – just as it is on the web, which as I noted last week was the far better UI. Also back are your 'Projects' and 'Recents' (recent chats) in the sidebar. 'Temporary Chats' too! Again, OpenAI basically made ChatGPT ChatGPT again.

Albeit a more bloated and less performant version. Still no GPT-Live. Baby steps.

Codex is here too, in that same main drop-down. You can also set it as the default if you're coming up from the old Codex app (which auto-updated into this app). It's still the same non-native, now-Electron-y app that those users are used to. That still sucks for users of the old ChatGPT Mac app (this version seems to use a shit ton of virtual memory), but you can also still use that for now as 'ChatGPT (Classic)'.

And everything now apparently syncs between desktop, mobile, and web. Why it didn't in the first place, I don't know. This all felt a bit rushed out the door. In case you haven't heard, OpenAI has had one hell of a week.

Anyway, all of that is in a positive direction. But it also begs the question as to why on Earth OpenAI didn't realize all of this obvious stuff before launch? Perhaps beyond being rushed to get the first "Super App" out the door, it seems like a situation where the team was far too focused on simply cloning Claude. Specifically, what Anthropic had done with the Claude desktop app. This new ChatGPT app was – and remains– largely that.

And you could argue it's even more like that now because it actually opens into chat mode, just like Claude does. As I noted, this was perhaps the most confusing thing of all. OpenAI cloned Claude except for this one key bit of functionality. Now they have that too. Clearly, they were too Codex-pilled.

We all get why. Claude Code (and Cowork) has been killing it, rocketing Anthropic into not just a viable OpenAI competitor, but into a more highly valued company bringing in more money. OpenAI's answer, Codex, was clearly showing progress in combating that turning of the tides, so they decided to go all-in, chat be damned.

The problem is that pesky one billion or so ChatGPT users that OpenAI seemingly forgot they had. Obviously they didn't forget, they just view that user base as far less valuable than the ones focused on coding and other agentic angles. And yeah, I mean it is literally less valuable of a user base when it comes to bringing in money right now. I might argue that longer term, if OpenAI really believes they can crack the AI advertising nut, having the widest base of users would be far more valuable, but it's still unclear if that will happen.

In that light, we can see the dilemma. But there were also probably about a dozen better ways to do this roll-out – as highlighted by how fast they're fixing these things – and they just missed the mark. While they undoubtedly knew there would be some backlash, they probably didn't realize there would be this much. Again. All that points to perhaps a disturbing trend where OpenAI doesn't really understand their user base. Which you almost can understand given how they clearly stumbled into ChatGPT in the first place. Still, here they are with those billion users. A problem that all of their competitors would love to have. But still a problem if you want to fundamentally change what you are as a product..

But those are bigger, existential issues. All I wanted was chat back in the ChatGPT app. Front and center. And I got it. It's not perfect. It's still bloated. But at least it's usable again now and not a confusing mess of ideas out of the box.

Update July 18, 2026: Some good/fun pushback from John Gruber who thinks I'm going too easy on OpenAI for quickly fixing some (but hardly all) of the issues:

Two excerpts to call out:

The only good solution is to pretend this last week didn’t happen and go back to calling ChatGPT “ChatGPT” and Codex “Codex”. If they want to give one of them a new name, don’t call ChatGPT “ChatGPT Classic” — instead rename Codex “ChatGPT Codex”. There, done. All problems solved.

This occurred to me after I published, but while Gruber (in another post) analogizes this to the whole 'New Coke'/'Coke Classic' fiasco in the 1980s, what if a more modern analog is when Netflix unveiled 'Qwikster'. The year was 2011, and the company really wanted to go all-in on their streaming efforts and viewed the DVD-by-mail business as yesterday's news. The problem was that to millions of their loyal users it wasn't yesterday's news, it was the service they still knew and loved and used. Worse, they saw it as a ploy to raise prices.

The stock crashed, millions quit, and Netflix had to backtrack, fast.

It was the one huge mistake Reed Hastings made in his tenure as CEO of Netflix and now it's a literal case study in what not to do. That was a worse situation, but mainly because software can be fixed faster than physical/logistics changes to your business. Also, Netflix was a public company at that point, OpenAI, famously, is not (yet). One has to wonder what the market reaction would have been to this ChatGPT shitshow...

But it's also worth noting that overall, Hastings wasn't wrong with the call, he was just too early – which I noted was a possibility here as well in my original post. Regardless, Hastings didn't read his room correctly, just as OpenAI didn't here. That said:

The Codex app is clearly capable of amazing things. But the reason that there are a billion users of ChatGPT but only a few million users of Codex — by OpenAI’s own accounting — is because ChatGPT is simple and focused and based on a single coherent concept: chat. The frustration of the eggheads now running product at OpenAI is obvious: how come these hundreds of millions of morons using ChatGPT aren’t running Codex instead? Somehow they thought they could fix this by giving Codex the ChatGPT name. This is like if Apple had gotten rid of the Messages app on the Mac and replaced it with Xcode, which they renamed to “Messages”. Now they’ve put an “iMessage” tab in the Xcode sidebar and re-released the Messages app everyone knew and loved as “Messages Classic”.

OpenAI separated itself from its competition — especially Anthropic — by being good at product. Now their product decisions are being made by people who don’t understand why Apple makes both iMovie and Final Cut Pro, or GarageBand and Logic Pro.

I'm compelled by the idea that there should be a 'Pro' version of ChatGPT and a simple version for consumers. Which, yes, is how it basically was with Codex! Sure, it's more work when it comes to upkeep, but it feels like we're still a ways away from everyone wanting to use all the agentic capabilities. Especially since it's so bloated and convoluted. Could they even get a billion users had they started here? I doubt it!

I know OpenAI hopes that's not the case, that everyone will want to switch to Codex – aka New ChatGPT – but that's projecting fueled by their own business needs. A very stupid – and dangerous – way to do product development, obviously.

2026-07-17 02:53:44

Help, I've been YouTube-pilled.

I realize this is rather a ridiculous sentence to write. Not because it's absurd to be sucked down the YouTube rabbit hole, but because it's 2026. The service launched 21 years ago. It's old enough to drink. It's the second-most-visited site in the world, only behind that of its parent company, Google. Isn't everyone YouTube-pilled by now?

And it's not like I'm new to the service. According to my profile, I joined on February 18, 2006 – just four days after its first birthday, and almost exactly nine months before it was acquired by Google. But in my 20 years on the service, I've never really gotten into it.

I mean, sure I've used it, even a lot, because again, it's the second most popular site on the internet and has been for years. But largely not in the way that I assume many have been for a long time now. Yes, I've even posted a few videos here and there – creator alert! – but mainly to embed them on TechCrunch back in the day (though only one video is still up – an iPhone 4S test from 14 years ago!).¹ But I just never really got into using it as a destination. Most of my consumption came either through embeds on other sites or going there to search for something in particular, like many a 'how-to' video when I first became a father. Anyway, something shifted for me over the past year or so. I'm not really sure why, but now I find myself on YouTube constantly. Consuming, constantly.

To the point where this post has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while now. Because I think about it relative to the other streaming services. It just feels like YouTube has taken over. Again, on some level, I know I'm way late to such an observation – and increasingly, the metrics bear this out. But whereas it used to feel like Netflix was the undisputed king of streaming, it now feels like YouTube snuck up and stole that crown.

And I say "snuck up" because for years, YouTube has been disparaged by Hollywood and those other streaming services as sort of amateur hour. I mean that quite literally. They all scoffed at UGC as just sort of crap that no one actually watches. Obviously that's true for a lot of such content, but it overlooks what YouTube actually is: the perfect vessel for video on the internet. All video. While it started with UGC – well, and perhaps pirated Hollywood fare – it's now the home to pretty much everything.

It's also increasingly the birthplace of not only the next generation of Hollywood content, but the talent as well. Everyone was waiting and watching for AI to disrupt the industry, but it was YouTube that clearly has this year.

Again, it feels silly to write this. I mean, no shit! But whereas Hollywood has long been shitting themselves about Netflix – going as far as to be adamantly (and foolishly) against their thwarted takeover of Warner Bros – it feels like they're now awakening to reality: that YouTube, not Netflix, controls the market.

Netflix, of course, knows this. And they tried to argue this to their advantage in the Warner Bros pursuit. But it largely fell upon deaf ears. And now, having lost Warner Bros, it feels like Netflix is increasingly freaking out about the situation. What started as striking deals left and right for video podcasts has now branched into other shorter-form content that has proven popular on YouTube.

If the old goal was for Netflix to become HBO before HBO could become Netflix, the new goal may be for Netflix to become YouTube before YouTube destroys Netflix.

That's hyperbole, of course. Netflix isn't going anywhere. But they're also, by at least some metrics, no longer growing. Certainly not as they once were. And subscribers aside, the real concern now is about engagement. This not only helps to mitigate churn, but it's also now vital as they ramp up their advertising efforts. This has led the push into more and more live content, including, most notably, sports – a space the company previously said they had no interest in, of course.

But as history has proven time and time again, Netflix loves to backtrack. As they should! Situations change and Netflix should change along with them. Most recently, this includes their stance on movie theaters, which was obviously in part tied to the aforementioned Warner Bros pursuit, but is also continuing even with that now over (as predicted). And soon, it will undoubtedly include UGC too.

I'm not saying they're going to become YouTube, but only because that seems impossible in 2026. YouTube is already YouTube. It's not something Netflix, or anyone else, can just throw money at. Sure, they can throw the money to pick off some shows/creators here and there, but they'll never be able to get the full corpus of content that YouTube now gets – for free, I might add. We're way past that tipping point.

Netflix would undoubtedly say that they don't want all that content, just the best.² But, if they're being honest, I think they probably would like to swap spots with YouTube right now. Netflix is currently a $300B market cap company, but their stock has been depressed over the past year, down 40+%. And they're actually not far above where they were five years ago. Yes, that's better than Disney, which is actually down 45%+ from where they were five years ago – and flat over the past decade-plus following the comedown from the pandemic streaming surge – but this is not the path towards becoming the first trillion-dollar media company.

YouTube, on the other hand, might be valued at $500B were it a standalone company these days. Thanks to Google now breaking such things out, we know that their revenue is actually higher than that of Netflix – $60B vs. $45B last year. Netflix is growing revenue a bit faster, but that's largely thanks to said advertising ramp. YouTube is already ramped and now coming for Netflix's core business, subscriptions, a business which is growing faster than Netflix's. Have I mentioned that YouTube doesn't have the cost of content that Netflix does?

Google doesn't break out YouTube's actual profits, but given the likely margin difference, it undoubtedly also brings in more profits than Netflix does – perhaps to the tune of $15B to $20B versus about $11B for Netflix last year. And that's with YouTube paying out 55% of revenue to creators, of course.

Anyway, they're both great businesses, but it feels like YouTube is increasingly in a better strategic position than Netflix is. Which is undoubtedly why Netflix keeps encroaching on their territory, even though YouTube isn't really getting into Netflix's core business – at least not yet. Again, yes they're selling subscriptions, but they're not commissioning expensive Hollywood content. They tried that back in the day and it didn't work. Even if individual shows, like Cobra Kai, did work – ironically, eventually on Netflix!

To me, the key to YouTube is now twofold. First, it's the sheer breadth and depth of the content. Again, this was once viewed as a weakness relative to Hollywood, but now it's a massive strength. There is literally something for everyone to watch, even me. Yes, this has long been the case, but in our age of streaming inundation, YouTube's focus on shorter form content I think is helping them differentiate.

Everyone now knows the feeling of being weighed down by choice, but especially if that choice means deciding which two-hour-plus movie to sit down and watch. That was always a massive time commitment – a huge chunk of your actual day. But in our era of abundant choices, it's harder than ever to justify such "spend". TV shows are easier because they're usually shorter. But you know what's usually shorter still? YouTube videos.³

Better yet, unlike when the longer form Netflix content is over, YouTube can offer you other shorter content if you have some more time. Once you finish your movie on Netflix, it seems unreasonable to think that you're immediately going to spend another two hours to watch another movie!

With that in mind, I suspect Netflix's real play with YouTube-like content will be as "filler". That is, content that can fit in the crevices of time between their main content. Maybe you just watched a movie about the Trojan War and want some more content along those lines. How about a video podcast that dives into it? Or just another shorter video on the general topic? This is where YouTube destroys Netflix right now, obviously.

They both have excellent recommendation engines, but only YouTube has the content that truly matters for real-time follow-up content consumption.

The other key aspect of YouTube is even more obvious: the UI. This has been an especially interesting revelation to me since I've long found Google's UI chops a bit lacking. But YouTube has always been pretty strong in this regard, and it feels so honed in at this point that it just makes Netflix feel and look bloated by comparison.

Netflix's UI isn't awful, it's just BIG. YouTube is able to cram in a lot more tiles for content you might be interested in – this is true on the web and on TVs, an area of increasing importance to YouTube, of course. As you undoubtedly know by now, YouTube is actually ahead of Netflix when it comes to viewership on televisions, which is wild because it was Netflix's home turf!

Overall, YouTube just feels faster. It feels like it's built for our current era where you can quickly and easily dip into and out of things. Netflix, for as good as they are with streaming compression and what not, still just feels like it was built for the old paradigm of content. Because it was!

This, in turn, makes YouTube feel like a great home for all types of content, including the more "premium" stuff that usually resides on my "traditional" streamers. That includes both movies – which yes, you can rent through YouTube – and shows, which you can increasingly watch via their "Channels" play, which took a page out of Prime Video's playbook.

Again, while YouTube isn't paying for their own content anymore, it increasingly feels like they won't need to thanks to these Channels. I've long wondered who would end up winning the battle to be the main streaming hub, with Apple the most obvious choice given their position in the market and previous success with iTunes. But their Apple TV set top box strategy continues to move in the wrong direction, and they're clearly not going to make an actual television set anytime soon (sadly), so it now feels like a fight mainly between Prime Video, YouTube, and Netflix.⁴

The latter clearly – clearly – is going to start their own "Channels" strategy sooner rather than later. It's low-hanging fruit from a retention and engagement perspective. And given their size, everyone will obviously be willing to work with them – though maybe Apple only if they agree to reciprocate and finally allow Netflix content to be surfaced by the Apple TV UI. Something which Netflix really should do! Again, engagement!

It's also clear that we're going to see Netflix strike more deals to take over the front-end of various cable TV services around the world. The early returns with TF1 in France seem very positive and again, this helps lock Netflix into that position as the main TV UI. And it's hard for YouTube to do this because they have their own, competing service in the form of YouTube TV (though yes, it remains US-only).

At some point, YouTube TV is going to get rolled into YouTube itself. Presumably the current cable deals preclude that from happening, but it's getting more and more muddled as YouTube itself takes on the Oscars, BBC, Mister Rogers, perhaps the next World Cup rights, more NFL, etc.⁵

I mentioned this the other day, but it long has felt like Netflix was not the new HBO because they ended up being far larger than that: the new cable TV. But actually, it now feels like this notion is almost veering a bit negative, that Netflix is akin to basic cable. It's something everyone has, but no one really loves anymore. The best content is on Apple TV and Disney+ and yes, HBO Max, as the new "premium" cable channels of the day. Meanwhile, YouTube is the new TV. The service that's free that has everything and by far the largest reach – akin to the big networks of old. All of them. Combined.

To that end, it also feels like Netflix needs to go free sooner rather than later. With the ad-tier in place, they can offer up the ultimate FAST service. It won't be for me and perhaps not for you, as the subscription tiers would obviously remain, but it can kickstart growth once again.

And that would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than say, buying Disney or even Lionsgate. All options should be on the table to shake things up once again, but if we all can agree that YouTube is the real rival, it's becoming increasingly clear how to best combat them.

In a way, the two are on a collision course just coming from opposite ends. Netflix from the premium side, YouTube from the UGC side. Both have been hugely successful in their own lanes, but those lanes are converging. And seemingly out of nowhere – at least to me – YouTube would suddenly seem to have the clearer path...

¹ While we had deals with other video providers, I can't tell you how much faster it was to use YouTube to get a video up and live back in the day. This mattered at the speed of blogging... ↩

² Are they a good judge of "best"? I would argue not... ↩

³ Yes, yes, TikTok and Reels shorter still! And that's perhaps why they're working too! And why YouTube has Shorts. ↩

⁴ Especially with Roku now going to Fox... ↩

⁵ Where Google TV, a service which has pivoted about a half dozen times over the years but is currently the software that can power smart TVs, as well as their own set-top box, fits is another matter. I guess it continues as-is to try to be more of a "Switzerland" where YouTube is just one option, but if YouTube really does take over TV... ↩

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.

That's a bingo.

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...