Gadgets have gotten pretty boring over the past few years. We’ve gotten a few unsuccessful attempts at AI devices. And every 12 months, we get a new iPhone that’s basically indistinguishable from the last iPhone.
Which makes the next few months pretty interesting. In September, Apple is expected to release its new operating system, featuring a fully revamped Siri that’s supposed to be genuinely useful.
And sometime in early 2027, we’re expected to see the first gadget from OpenAI — a doughnut-shaped thing the size of a hockey puck that could cost $300 or more.
I’m not sold at all on the OpenAI gadget, because I don’t see how it will be meaningfully different from a phone without a screen. And I’m quite intrigued by the new Siri, because if it delivers on its promise, it will make my existing iPhone way more useful.
But who cares what I think? What about professional gadget watchers, like Joanna Stern?
Stern was the primary consumer technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, where she succeeded the legendary Walt Mossberg. Now she’s off doing her own thing — New Things, a video/newsletter operation that seems like it’s off to a fast start.
She’s also spent a bunch of time thinking about OpenAI’s yet-to-be-announced device, and playing with the new Siri. She’s enthusiastic about both.
I talked to Stern about all of that, as well as launching her new business and how to make high-quality video on a (relative) shoestring budget, for my Channels podcast. The following is an edited excerpt of our conversation.
Peter Kafka: The reporting about the new, yet-to-be announced gadget from OpenAI, designed by Jony Ive, is that it’s going to be a smart speaker. Why a smart speaker?
Joanna Stern: I recently interviewed OpenAI president Greg Brockman. A big focus of the conversation was on voice, and these devices.
And of course he didn’t tell me much, but he did focus on a phrase, which he said a couple times — “a family of devices.” So I think for the first one out of the gate, a speaker is easiest for a company that hasn’t made much hardware before.
I think that makes the most sense for them — both in terms of complexity of what they’re doing, and the focus on voice-only, no screen. This is a device that you can carry around with you and talk to all the time.
This idea that it doesn’t have a screen being a plus: Is that Jony Ive, making amends for bringing us the iPhone? Or that lots of people in tech think screens are bad for us, and that people will appreciate not having a screen? Because I think people love screens.
The question is: Where’s the location you’re gonna be using this screenless device? I’m assuming it has some sort of small battery inside, and it’s pretty portable, right? It’s not going to just live in your kitchen or your bathroom.
So maybe you tote this thing around a little bit. And so that might give you more freedom to step away from your iPhone or your Android phone and talk to AI. Maybe you bring your speaker in the car, maybe you bring your speaker to some other part of your house or wherever you may be working, and interact with it in a different way.
And it has cameras, so maybe you can point your speaker in front of the thing and ask questions about it. Maybe you’re in your home and you need to work on something, and you ask your speaker, “Hey, look at my broken outlet. What do you think I need to do here?” That’s, that’s my guess.
But again: I wonder if they’ve over-indexed on this idea of an anti-screen backlash — that they think we’re all dying to get rid of our screens. Which is not what you see when you take a flight, get on the subway, or stand in a line.
There was this moment in the Brockman interview where somebody brings him a laptop because he’s going to do a demo on the new voice interface, and he seems disgusted at the laptop. He’s like, “These devices are so annoying.”
As someone who loves laptops, I probably should’ve asked a little bit more about why he hates his laptop. But I kinda saw where he was going there: Why do we need to have this big thing if I just want to demo voice for you?
And I think that kind of hints at where they are going: Maybe this thing will connect to all of your ChatGPT apps — desktop, laptop, phone — and you’ll be able to say to it, “Hey, go make me that memo” or “go make me that presentation.” The idea that you’re freeing yourself from your screens — but you’re going to come back to your screens.
By buying another device.
Are you more sold on glasses?
I am much more interested in that, because as I get older, I’m wearing glasses more often. So if you’re going to make glasses more useful, great. But so far, all of the glasses I’ve seen require you to have a phone as well. If I could swap out my phone for my glasses …
The history of this kind of technology — I talk a little bit about this in my book — is that we don’t usually lose the devices that came before. We didn’t lose the laptop when we got the smartphone.
Apple will have new devices this fall, one of which is supposed to be a foldable phone. But I think the bigger deal is the new Siri — the one they promised a couple of years ago. The pitch is more or less: Siri is finally going to do all the things you thought it should have been able to do for years. You’ve tried it. Does the claim hold up?
I believe that claim holds up. I’ve been using the iOS 27 beta since June. There are still some old Siri quirks, but the capabilities of the new Siri just push you to use it so much more. You want to use it.
Give me an example.
A lot of it is based on the fact that it can look through any of your Apple content on apps like iMessages, Safari, and Apple Mail.
So today I could have said, “Hey Siri, Peter texted me about the podcast. Remind me what time it is.”
I don’t even have to say “texted.” I can just say, “Remember how my friend Peter was talking about his podcast? Remind me what I have to wear to that, and remind me what time we’re talking.” It could find that from the calendar, or it could just go find that from our communications.
There’s been so many moments in the last few months where there are things that I just completely forgot, and then I just ask and Siri comes up with it, and there’s a link there to the message, and I can go back and check the source.
That was the demo Apple showed off in 2024: “I’m picking up my mom. When’s her flight? And what are we doing afterward?” That seemed genuinely useful, and they didn’t deliver it, but you’re saying it’s here now. Are you worried about hallucinations?
I haven’t had any real problems with it hallucinating. I’ve run into roadblocks where it says it can’t do something, and I’m like, “You can do this, Siri. Go back and try.” But those are just beta quirks.
I think one big thing going into the launch is whether Apple users feel like AI’s being shoved down their throats. You can turn [the new Siri] off, but there’s going to be a lot of people that get this and feel like, “Hey, I didn’t ask for this.”
There’s also no way right now in the new Siri to say, “Hey, I don’t want you to look at my messages,” or “I don’t want you to look at my email.” You have to give it access to all of your Apple stuff. And yes, Apple has built private cloud compute, and they talk about how more private they are than any other AI company. But most people are not nerds, and they won’t understand Apple’s [privacy] explanations.
It seems like if this works for enough people, it’s a really big deal — that it makes your phone significantly better in a way that a fancier camera or more battery or any of the other incremental changes we’ve seen from Apple haven’t done. Is that fair?
Totally.
When they launched Apple Intelligence in 2024, they said you had to have a recent device to use it. People were upset about that — but also were not that upset, because Apple Intelligence turned out to suck.
Now we have a lot more generations of phones that can take advantage of Apple Intelligence that will get this new Siri.
So they can say, “Your old iPhone just got a lot better.”
Exactly.
