Yesterday brought a surprising report about the development of an Apple pin, which The Information likened to the mysterious and as-yet-unreleased AI hardware device designed by Jony Ive.
I have a pretty strong suspicion about what the Apple pin is, and I’m very confident indeed that I know what it isn’t …
The Apple pin report
The report was a curious mixture of highly specific information and extreme vagueness.
The specificity related to the physical characteristics of the device. We’re told that it has a similar size and form factor to an AirTag, has a physical button along one of its edges, and contains two cameras, three microphones and a speaker. For an early-stage, unreleased product, that’s pretty specific.
However, the detail in the report ended there. We don’t know whether it’s a standalone product or an iPhone accessory, for example. Most crucially, there was absolutely nothing in the report about why the product was being developed or what it is supposed to do.
A crucial sentence
The report started confidently with the bold claim that “Apple is developing an AI-powered wearable pin.” Just two paragraphs later, however, was a rather crucial sentence:
Apple’s development is in the very early stages and could still be canceled.
We know that Apple experiments with all kinds of technology that never come anywhere close to being released – you only have to read the company’s incredibly diverse patent filings to know this.
A random sprinkling of these includes a mysterious Apple pebble, a hi-tech replacement for car mirrors, a smart contact lens, a motorized Vision Pro headset band, an app-controlled color-changing Apple Watch band, and an Apple Watch sensor to detect the colour of your clothing.
The extremely small percentage of Apple patents that are ever launched by the company is such that we always apply a disclaimer to our coverage of these. “Apple experiments with a huge number of ideas, and patents many of them, but only a handful are ever released as products.”
Here’s what the Apple Pin probably is
AI is changing the world and nobody really knows what its future may hold – Apple included. For example, less than a year ago, the company publicly rejected the idea of a Siri chatbot. Just seven months later, it has apparently changed its mind.
That U-turn didn’t come out of nowhere: clearly, the company has been experimenting with this and has now decided that it is, after all, the way to go.
It’s an absolute certainty that Apple is experimenting with hundreds of potential AI-based product and service ideas; it would be irresponsible not to. A few of these will see the light of day, most of them will go nowhere. This is one of those, almost certainly falling into the latter category.
Yes, I fully believe the described device exists as a prototype. Yes, I absolutely accept that the company wants to find out whether there is any role for this type of device. But if ever there was a product description which fits the bill of a technology Apple is playing with but is never likely to release, the Apple pin is it.
Maybe there will be some payoff, like my colleague Zac Hall’s suggestion that perhaps it will help with the development of a future Apple Watch with a camera or two, which is one of the benefits of this type of project – you play with lots of tech because some of it will lead somewhere useful, even in an unrelated area.
Here’s what it definitely isn’t
The report conflates the Apple pin with the unreleased iO device designed by Apple’s former design chief, Jony Ive.
There are also a great many unknowns about that product (or set of products). We don’t know what form it will take or what functions it will perform. But from the clues the company has released, it sounds very much like an always-on, always-recording device that goes with us everywhere.
As the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 demonstrated, there are two big problems with this. First, they are pointless, and second that devices intended to record everything they see and hear have massive privacy issues. I don’t even want everything I see and hear to be recorded in the course of a week, and I’m certainly not willing to assume the permission of everyone else I meet.
I mean, yes, it would mostly be legal in most countries. I can stand on a street corner and shoot video of a tourist attraction that includes footage of you walking past me, and I can post it to YouTube if I like.
But there’s a world of difference between including incidental footage of people walking down a street and capturing every conversation we have in the course of a day – friends, work colleagues, suppliers, clients, and random interactions with store assistants and the dog walker we say hello to in the park every morning without even knowing their name (we know the dog’s name, of course).
Additionally, if a device is intended to be carried with us at all times and to be silently recording the entire time, that will include places that aren’t public – everything from company meetings to visiting other people’s homes.
Given Apple’s extremely strong stance on privacy, there is not the slightest possibility that it will ever release a device like this.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
My take, then, is that this is one of literally hundreds of AI-related research projects the company is playing with. It’s also one of the least likely candidates to ever be released as an Apple product.
Do you agree, or could you see an Apple Pin making it into stores? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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