TECH NEWS – This time, OpenAI has managed to lure away the key figure behind Apple’s Vision Pro—perhaps not by accident.
Paul Meade, the head of Apple’s Vision Products Group, is reportedly leaving for OpenAI in search of better opportunities. He is leaving behind an Apple product category that is hopelessly lagging behind its competitors. According to Bloomberg editor Mark Gurman, Paul Meade—vice president of hardware engineering at Apple’s Vision Products Group, who oversaw the Vision Pro and Apple’s upcoming smart glasses initiative—is joining OpenAI. Meade will conclude his 15-year tenure at Apple next week and then join OpenAI’s hardware division. The division continues to work full steam ahead to bring several consumer AI devices to market.
OpenAI is developing several AI-powered devices, including earbuds with the internal codename “Sweetpea,” which will likely be sold under the brand name “Dime,” and a pen-shaped device with the internal codename “Gumdrop.” However, renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed in April that OpenAI has put its planned consumer device lineup on hold and is focusing on an AI-powered smartphone instead. Luxshare is likely to be the main assembler of OpenAI’s smartphone, which appears poised to challenge the dominance of the Apple iPhone. OpenAI has reportedly chosen a customized version of MediaTek’s upcoming Dimensity 9600 chip as the system-on-a-chip (SoC) for its planned smartphone. The Dimensity 9600 chip will use TSMC’s N2P manufacturing technology. Additionally, the Pro version is expected to feature two ARM C2-Ultra cores with a clock speed of approximately 5 GHz, three ARM C2-Premium cores, and three ARM C2-Pro cores, mimicking the 2+3+3 CPU architecture of Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip.
Apple’s Vision Pro has failed to gain widespread popularity. Its smart glasses aren’t set to launch until late 2027, and the release of its AR glasses has been postponed to 2028 or 2029. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Meade decided to leave Apple. He is not the only one who has left Apple in the past few months. In January, the company lost Stuart Bowers, one of Siri’s key executives, who joined Google DeepMind. In December, Apple lost four key executives, including its then-AI chief, John Giannandrea, and the head of user interface design, Alan Dye. Apple’s core iPhone design team has also lost talent to Jony Ive’s company, LoveFrom, which OpenAI recently acquired to develop an “iPhone-killer” device. Last year, Gurman reported that OpenAI may have hired as many as 40 Apple engineers, including Matt Theobald, an expert in manufacturing design, and Cyrus Daniel Iranit, the former head of user interface design.
To counter OpenAI’s enticing offers, Apple recently increased its design team’s annual bonuses, which now range from $200,000 to $400,000 depending on Apple’s stock performance.
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