Meta also realized this and attempted multiple times to build their own hardware but they've given up each time. They started as early as a partnering with HTC in 2011 to make a Facebook phone.
Quite frankly, I'm kind of excited to see what OpenAI can build. I think an AI-first phone could challenge iOS and Android. It's a new paradigm and if OpenAI gets it right, it'll be very hard for Apple and Google to pivot.
I personally think chat + code is the future of apps. For example, I find myself wanting to do many things inside ChatGPT instead of traditional app because I can tell it to do things that are simply impossible on a static app UI. For example, I have some data I want to send to an app but before I do, I want ChatGPT to clean the data in some way first. And then after the data is uploaded, I want ChatGPT to pull some data off the API and make charts that I want to see.
I imagine a world where very intelligent models run at 10k tokens/s, app building is extremely standardized, and it simply builds any app you want inside the OS. IE, if you want a dashboard of your health data, you ask it to build it almost instantly exactly how you want it. I'm already doing something similar today but it's slow and not easy to do for non-engineers.
Incidentally, that’s what’s preventing Apple from rolling out their OS-privileged AI in the EU, as the EU mandates equal access for competing AI products. It will be interesting how this plays out.
I’d go further and claim if controlling the hardware is a existential threat for these companies, their ability to deliver or not should be seen as an indictment of the entire “llm formulation of ai” era we’re currently in. If llms have the potential they claim, then empowering them to design a best of breed phone should be table stakes.
I was working in cellphone sales at the time and I can tell you no one wanted that phone back then even when Facebook was massive. An easy to hit facebook button was not a value add anyone was begging to exist.
Although with how many phones now have stock forced installs of Meta apps perhaps they won their con in the long game.
Similarly no one really wants a physical AI device, and attempts at such are pure techbro hubris on the companies part.