Humane’s Ai Pin may be dead and gone, but its infamous legacy may live on thanks to an unexpected company. According to a new report from The Information, Apple is currently developing its smart AI Pin to follow the defunct and bricked Humane Ai Pin. Hooray for the sequel no one asked for it?
The reported AI gadget sounds atrocious, to say the least. According to the report, Apple’s pin is “a thin, flat, circular disk with an aluminum and glass shell” and has two cameras, including a standard and a wide-angle one, built into the front. Those cameras are designed to replace the wearer with photos and videos that I think would be some kind of computer vision based feature.
Naturally, the pin is reportedly equipped with microphones to pick up sound, meaning it could potentially use a voice assistant and could be used for things like translation. Interestingly, the pin is said to have a speaker and “a visible button on the side of its edge” and “a magnetic charging interface on the back, similar to the one used on the Apple Watch.” In terms of size, sources say they are aiming to make this thing the size of an AirTag.
That’s a little information, but I still have a lot of questions. For another, how does this thing stick? If it’s a magnet, I have bad news, which is that the whole magnetic pin thing didn’t really work. There were many problems with Humane’s Ai Pin, but the magnets were not not big. Keeping an expensive AI gadget attached to your clothes is just harder than it sounds, and I’m not sure Apple has a solution for that.
Also, does anyone even want an AI pin? If Humane’s failed experiment is any indication, I’d bet the answer is no. Sure, maybe Humane didn’t have the right resources or acumen to make the idea work, or maybe the idea of an AI pin replacing a smartphone wasn’t a good idea to begin with. Personally, my money for thinking about AI is at an end.
Surprisingly, one of the most eyebrow-raising parts of this report isn’t that Apple seems to be returning the dumpster fire that was Humane; that it looks like all this is done to compete with someone other than OpenAI. In case you missed it, OpenAI (with the help of former Apple, Jony Ive) reportedly has several AI gadgets planned for the near future, including what could be a competitor to AirPods and… Information says that Apple is speeding up the development of its ill-advised AI gadget to ensure that it is not outside looking at the success of OpenAI.
The problem with that picture is that I’m not sure there will be success looking at it. AI gadgets are almost an unproven category as they enter the tech world, and rushing into that unproven frenzy feels short-sighted, to say the least. I doubt this thing (if it actually exists) will ever see the light of day, but who knows. Maybe it really is Apple that he was caught chasing an AI dragon. That’s what investors want, right?
