Both Apple and Google have dropped the ball enough with the state of recent releases that some iPhone-equivalent-disruption product from the AI industry is becoming conceivable, though I would be surprised if it turns out not to be running Android in some form.
Putting a lot of effort into pushing complexity into software to reduce manufacturing complexity is precisely the sort of thing you worry about when you're getting serious about building consumer products.
> though I would be surprised if it turns out not to be running Android in some form.
Just yesterday I saw a post I cant recall if on here or reddit, someone coded an entire OS with Claude Code, I would not be surprised if they invest AI compute at building an OS themselves, though I'd never buy a phone from these companies.
The issue is getting developers to create apps for a new OS nobody uses (yet). And nobody will use it if they can't have their banking app and uber on it
This becomes even tougher if they go the Apple route and don't allow other phone manufacturers to use their OS. Alternatively, if they go down the Windows Phone route, we saw how that played out considering that Google _pays_ manufacturers to use Android
Making OS is very hard, but getting necessary adoption is likely even harder
I would be surprised if any AI forward OS is based around applications developed by other people. I imagine the OS will create the software you need. Thing's like banking apps are more difficult, but I imagine OpenAI could sort that out behind the scenes.
Honestly this might be less of a problem these days. If the model is that you build a good dev API and everyone points their agent at the software they need, then you don’t need the huge corporate investment in a full ecosystem.
To be clear I don’t think we are fully ready for this to work. But directionally the trend looks significant.
I, as someone who would rather leave the industry than become a manager of either people or autonomous agents, or worse just a meat-based relay, am truly obsolete.
porting an OS to a known platform which has been done a tonne of times before is very different to trying to create a power efficient, secure and fast OS on hardware that is not yet locked down, let alone released.
Moreover the interaction between firmware and the OS is a massive headache to overcome, especially if you are dealing with battery powered devices.
Android has a huge amount of battle tested stuff for running things like media codecs and GPUs connected to devices that are not rebooted for months on end by normal people. (The iPhone wasn't an entirely new OS either for a good reason).
The whole vibe coding an OS might become a thing in the next few years, but you still have to QA and test it, and there simply hasn't actually been enough time for that.
The time is ripening to disrupt Android/iOS. The place to start would be to rethink the device around AI. No need for apps or messy integrations with third-party crap. Just a simple device with a great new UX (not typing on a touchpad!) that is slick and does a few things very well (personal agent, coordinating with your personal knowledge base, handling external communications and your interface with the world). This could very easily supplant a phone.
AI is rapidly getting to such a place where the you don't really need a developer ecosystem to get your device off the ground. As "plugins" into your agent at some later point -- sure, why not.
The problem is that although what most people use on a daily basis is small nearly everyone uses something unusual app for _something_. I think it would be quite hard to find a market large enough that didn’t include such people.
There is a solution sitting there, which is running Android and having the AI run it behind the scenes I guess, but is suspect that would end up looking a lot like we have now.
OpenAI want to make smart glasses, but can't do that yet because its not possible.
So they are almost certianly making an alexa type thing with cameras. So they can build a device capable of recording the entire context of a household.
Because the central limitation is still mass; a friction-fit frame light enough to sit on your face all day without fatigue is the market expectation for eyewear, and devices generally require parts which weigh more than glasses.
I wonder if it might be some totally clean sheet of paper OS design but also capable of running Android applications in an emulation/virtualization layer. I think they know that any mass market handheld smartphone consumer device isn't going to succeed (windows phone) unless people can easily install all available apps from either the google play store or apple app store.
App store inertia has to be the decisive roadblock, and yeah, there would need to be some workaround.
This could also be where China gets another win because of their de-Googled Android-not-Android ecosystem which would enable more competition in their local market than can be achieved elsewhere.
But honestly, why do that when there's already a good, open-source(ish), well-designed, highly secure operating system platform that already runs Android apps? Any new clean sheet OS is either going to be worse than Android on one or more of these dimensions, or it will be absurdly expensive to vibe code.
I mean by your own logic you can say you're doing the same thing.
You think smartphones will get disrupted because you're bored by the mature form factor.
I don't see that happening unless the new hardware and the way people interact with it is truly "magical" in some sense. Smartphones as a mature device category have so many things going for them that anything new will likely come as a complement for them (which apple can capitalise on) vs a complete replacement.
Actually, no. It's the irrelevant changes, such as Liquid Glass, which are the problem, where we all are made to learn new stuff to keep some designers busy.
> I don't see that happening unless the new hardware and the way people interact with it is truly "magical" in some sense.
But a truly AI enabled interface _would be_ magical. Being able to have a phone where your interface to it is completely built around your preferences, and not change at the whim of some external designer, for example. Where apps are merely things it uses on your behalf in the background . . . Neither Apple or Google could do this because it would disrupt their own cash cows too much.
There is also a lot of scope for using neural nets to drive peripherals (including moving parts) in non obvious ways which could add to it all.
I'm just discovering Glass Imaging (a bit difficult as their website seems overloaded), but it seems they are in software solutions, not a hardware manufacturer or designer.
So they want to put their spying AI directly into the camera workflow, where you can't see it and can't turn it off. They will have infinite training data and also sell access to the alphabet agencies. The next level of total surveillance.
it really does seem like they’re just buying stuff up in the hopes that something accidentally turns into a profit to cover their previous investments/promises. Kind of a ponzi of acquisitions
Putting a lot of effort into pushing complexity into software to reduce manufacturing complexity is precisely the sort of thing you worry about when you're getting serious about building consumer products.
Just yesterday I saw a post I cant recall if on here or reddit, someone coded an entire OS with Claude Code, I would not be surprised if they invest AI compute at building an OS themselves, though I'd never buy a phone from these companies.
The person got it running on bare hardware.
Found it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1wfpydl/i_asked_c...
This becomes even tougher if they go the Apple route and don't allow other phone manufacturers to use their OS. Alternatively, if they go down the Windows Phone route, we saw how that played out considering that Google _pays_ manufacturers to use Android
Making OS is very hard, but getting necessary adoption is likely even harder
To be clear I don’t think we are fully ready for this to work. But directionally the trend looks significant.
I, as someone who would rather leave the industry than become a manager of either people or autonomous agents, or worse just a meat-based relay, am truly obsolete.
Do you want fries with that?
Moreover the interaction between firmware and the OS is a massive headache to overcome, especially if you are dealing with battery powered devices.
The whole vibe coding an OS might become a thing in the next few years, but you still have to QA and test it, and there simply hasn't actually been enough time for that.
AI is rapidly getting to such a place where the you don't really need a developer ecosystem to get your device off the ground. As "plugins" into your agent at some later point -- sure, why not.
There is a solution sitting there, which is running Android and having the AI run it behind the scenes I guess, but is suspect that would end up looking a lot like we have now.
So they are almost certianly making an alexa type thing with cameras. So they can build a device capable of recording the entire context of a household.
Huh? Why not?
This could also be where China gets another win because of their de-Googled Android-not-Android ecosystem which would enable more competition in their local market than can be achieved elsewhere.
For the mass market, the AI industry has a trust problem.
ChatGPT is _enormous_. It doesn't matter if you don't trust it, half the planet does. They don't need to get the HN bubble on board.
Edit to add: the absolute state of the replies to this. Hilarious.
I don't see that happening unless the new hardware and the way people interact with it is truly "magical" in some sense. Smartphones as a mature device category have so many things going for them that anything new will likely come as a complement for them (which apple can capitalise on) vs a complete replacement.
Actually, no. It's the irrelevant changes, such as Liquid Glass, which are the problem, where we all are made to learn new stuff to keep some designers busy.
> I don't see that happening unless the new hardware and the way people interact with it is truly "magical" in some sense.
But a truly AI enabled interface _would be_ magical. Being able to have a phone where your interface to it is completely built around your preferences, and not change at the whim of some external designer, for example. Where apps are merely things it uses on your behalf in the background . . . Neither Apple or Google could do this because it would disrupt their own cash cows too much.
There is also a lot of scope for using neural nets to drive peripherals (including moving parts) in non obvious ways which could add to it all.
Only the HN bubble is interested in a new publicly subsidized AI phone option, over the AI phone already in their pocket at least.
Edit: what is this, Reddit?
> Edit: what is this, Reddit?
Pick a lane brother
Probably they are buying the staff, not the technology.
Hardware is the next thing which is far more valuable IP and with its staff.
Will be interesting to see how the legal battle plays out as well.
I'm sick of the Android/iOS duopoly. Let them cook. The market is so ripe for disruption.