Tony Fadell, credited as the "father of the iPod" and a co-creator of the iPhone, told an audience at the inaugural MIT Future Fest that the first wave of AI gadgets failed because they did not solve real problems. He projected images of three discontinued devices — the Rabbit R1, the Humane AI pin and the Limitless pendant — describing them as "Gen 1" AI products.
"In each of these cases, each one of them didn't meet any kind of need — it was just interesting technology for geeks," Fadell said. He added that most consumers have never had a human assistant and do not know how they would use or trust one.
Fadell said trust and safety will be paramount for any intelligence people hand over to a device. He argued that a successful AI agent will have to operate on-device only, both for privacy and to keep the technology lightweight, and said he does not believe data centres will dominate.
He said Apple is the only company he could see doing this right now, citing its hardware, chips and user trust, though he noted Apple does not have a world-class AI model of its own and that the new Siri AI runs on custom-built versions of Google's Gemini.
Fadell also suggested companies such as Meta and OpenAI are turning to gadgets because they lack access to the sensors on phones, and said startups have only one shot at finding product-market fit.