By John Moltz
May 23, 2025 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Friends and enemies
Jony Ive makes a new friend, Fornite returns to the App Store, and Mr. Tim Cook of Apple, please come to the White House courtesy phone.
High on their mutual supply
Finally, a chance to talk about AI.
“OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI hardware company”
If you were worried about Jony Ive’s financial solvency since leaving Apple, well, you can now rest comfortably. Ive’s AI company io (they had to make the “i” lower case because the moons of Jupiter are very litigious) was acquired by OpenAI for a whopping $6.5 billion. That’s a lot of scratch, even if it’s in the form of phony-baloney money like shares of OpenAI. A few more tariff announcements and the deal could be worth only $5 billion. It should also be noted that OpenAI already owned part of io, so it is in effect paying itself but please don’t sully this beautiful technological marriage by calling it money laundering.
How is it laundering if nothing is getting clean? See, this is why I have a column and you don’t.
For a guy whose AI company hasn’t shipped a product yet, Ive sure doesn’t like the ones that have shipped.
“Jony Ive says Rabbit and Humane made bad products”
He’s not wrong, of course, but it remains to be seen what he’s been working on that’s so much better.
“Details leak about Jony Ive’s new ‘screen-free’ OpenAI device”
According to The Verge, the device will ship in 2026 and be “pocket-size, contextually aware, screen-free, and isn’t eyewear”.
Are you getting it? Because I’m not. Certainly conceptually, but also probably in terms of eventually buying one. Sam Altman, however, thinks it’ll sell like the proverbial six-fingered hotcakes and “will ship ‘faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before.’”
OK, collar boy.
Ive and Altman want you to know that it’s absolutely not a pin. As if. Pins are dumb. Proven failures. No, this is an entirely new concept. A new way of framing the paradigm. A dingus that will reshape the very fabric of the dingusphere.
“Kuo: Jony Ive’s Futuristic OpenAI Device Like a Neck-Worn iPod Shuffle”
You know what? I’m done. I don’t… like… what the… c’mon.
Seriously. What is the point of all this? Well, apparently Ive has iPhone regret.
The Journal previously reported that Ive and Altman wanted to wean users away from screens, with Ive saying in a recent interview that his next product is driven by owning the “unintended consequences” associated with the iPhone.
Ah, yes, because people hate their phones so much and there are certainly no “unintended consequences” to AI. I am not a big-time tech mogul like these two gents, but it seems to me that if you have regrets about the “unintended consequences” of screens, running into the arms of a technology that’s deleterious to the environment, frequently gives wrong answers and can easily be used to manipulate people’s perceptions of basic facts is probably not going to make things better.
Anyway, good luck to these two billionaires on this venture. So far other attempts to wean people off screens have been somewhat less than successful, but maybe they’ve cracked the code. Certainly crack of some kind seems to be involved here.
Game on
The long national nightmare of young teens is finally over.
“Fortnite Returns to U.S. App Store”
Do young teens still play Fortnite? The young teens that were upset when Apple banned Fortnite from the store are probably in college now and are presumably playing NetHack, like you do in college.
How did this sticky issue finally get resolved?
The judge threatened to require the Apple official that oversees app decisions to appear in person in court, which apparently was enough to spur Apple to allow the game back on the App Store.
Yeah, Apple’s track record of having executives appear in court hasn’t been so great lately, so that seems like a good idea.
The Shakedown Part 2: The Reshakening
It’s a nice company ya got here, Mistah Cook. Be a shame if sumpin’ were tah happen to it.
“Trump Demands US iPhone Production, Threatens 25% Tariff”
Like a dog with a bone, the president will not leave “Tim Cook of Apple” alone. In his defense, though, it’s been months since Cook donated $1 million to his inaugural campaign. He’s way behind on his payments.
The threat sent Apple shares tumbling 3% in pre-market trading Friday.
Chop, chop, Tim Cook of Apple! The president cordially invites you to bend the knee!
Thank your [sic] for your attention to this matter!
Dumbest timeline. And they pushed back the date for “Avengers: Secret Wars”, so it’s not going to get reset until 2027 at the earliest.
Great. That’s just great.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]