Apple’s vice president of product design Tang Tan will reportedly join Ive’s company, LoveFrom, to work on hardware AI projects for OpenAI.
According to Bloomberg, Tan was hired by LoveFrom to “work on a new artificial intelligence hardware project” for ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
While the outgoing executive isn’t scheduled to depart the Cupertino firm until February, his responsibilities are already divided up.
Tang Tan to work on AI hardware for OpenAI
Legendary designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are enlisting an Apple Inc. veteran to work on a new artificial intelligence hardware project, aiming to create devices with the latest capabilities.
What are “devices with the latest capabilities”? We don’t know and neither does Bloomberg. We do know, however, that The Information reported in September that Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were discussing the possibility of collaborating on a new “AI hardware” based on OpenAI technology.
As part of the effort, outgoing Apple executive Tang Tan will join Ive’s design firm LoveFrom, which will shape the look and capabilities of the new products. Altman, an executive who has become the face of modern AI, plans to provide the software underpinnings. Tan will lead hardware engineering at the project while working at LoveFrom, the people said.
According to Gurman, Ive hopes to turn his work for OpenAI into a new company.
Many of Ive’s Apple colleagues are now at LoveFrom
Since leaving Apple in 2019 after spending nearly 30 years with the company, the legendary designer has hired more than 20 Apple employees. There are now more designers from Ive’s former design team workin at LoveFrom than remain at Apple.
The Apple departures have continued more recently. Patrick Coffman, one of Apple’s most important user interface design leaders, has left. Colin Burns, a former design executive at the British Broadcasting Corp. who joined Apple after Ive stepped down, is departing in January. He runs Apple’s Interaction Architecture team, which is responsible for exploring early hardware and software concepts.
Shota Aoyagi, another member of Ive’s industrial design team at Apple, has also departed the company and has just started at Ive’s firm.
LoveFrom has contributed to projects with partners like Airbnb and Ferrari. But if Ive and Altman successfully create a “new hardware for the age of AI,” as The Information put it, that would file as his most significant project since leaving Apple.