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OpenAI is building its own devices with Jony Ive, while Apple is currently in court with the company. Marketing chief Greg Joswiak remains unfazed. In a TIME profile of John Ternus, he explains for whom Apple is building its AI – and for whom it explicitly does not.
The statements come from the profile "John Ternus Is Engineering a New Era for Apple" by TIME correspondent Andrew R. Chow. In addition to Apple CEO Ternus, it features Greg Joswiak, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, and Lilian Rincon, who is responsible for Apple's AI products. The text appears as the iPhone Duo's entry in TIME's list of the best inventions of 2026, which is also the source of Ternus' verdict on the competition's first foldables.
TIME places Apple in stark contrast to the rest of the industry. Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in increasingly powerful models, while, according to TIME, Apple, although training its own models, is far from the top. Siri AI runs on an Apple model that uses technology from Google's Gemini.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Joswiak sees no threat in OpenAI's hardware plans: Apple's integration enables a better experience than any other.
- Apple is building AI for "normal people", not for the AI avant-garde, which Joswiak calls the "lunatic fringe".
- Ternus does not expect AI to make the iPhone obsolete: people want "physical things".
- Rincon says Siri AI was deliberately not designed as a companion.
- Siri AI is not yet available on the iPhone in the EU; German is not yet among the supported languages.
OpenAI's devices: "We do not feel threatened"
The competition comes from within Apple's own history. Last year, OpenAI acquired the startup founded by Jony Ive, Apple's longtime design chief, and is developing its own devices for ChatGPT with him and other former Apple employees. In July, Apple sued OpenAI for the theft of trade secrets from its hardware development; OpenAI maintains the lawsuit is unfounded. On October 14, OpenAI agreed in court not to use the disputed information, without admitting the allegations.
Joswiak sees no danger in the plans nonetheless:
We don't feel threatened. The fact that we can integrate in the way we can means that we can create a better experience than anyone else.
TIME supports this with figures: 2.5 billion active devices and annual sales of almost half a trillion dollars.
Not for the "Lunatic Fringe"
According to TIME, Apple is building a modest, yet personal and privacy-friendly form of AI intended to actually help ordinary people, rather than impressing the "lunatic fringe" in Silicon Valley - the eccentric fringe group, as Joswiak puts it. Those chasing after superintelligence are explicitly not part of the target audience.
We like them, and they can use it too, but that's not our goal. It's about making it better for ordinary people.
Rincon adds that Apple deliberately did not design Siri AI as a companion and does not intend to replace human interaction. Less computing power than other AI agents also means a lower risk of the system going haywire.
Ternus: The iPhone remains
Ternus goes even further. Even if other companies were to achieve superintelligence, according to Ternus, users would still want to interact with it via Apple devices. At the launch of the Pro models in the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, he said:
People want physical things. They want to talk, see pictures of their loved ones, take photos. So I don't see a scenario in which our devices suddenly disappear and we no longer need an iPhone.
Ternus doesn't see Apple's reliance on Google for Siri AI as a departure from its ambition to control everything itself. After all, Apple doesn't manufacture all its own displays, storage devices, and modems either.
We don't really aim to make every single part of a product ourselves. We focus on the things where we can truly excel.
Siri AI is based on Gemini technology, but is not itself a Gemini.
The average user in the EU is still waiting
The promise only applies to a limited extent in this country. Ternus justifies the benefit of Siri AI with the personal data on the phone – messages, emails, calendar. However, according to Apple's announcement regarding the iPhone Duo, Siri AI will not initially be available on the iPhone in the EU. The situation is different in Switzerland, where Siri AI is available on the iPhone.
In addition, there's the language issue. Siri AI launched with iOS 27 as a beta in English, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish to follow in October. German is not among them. Therefore, anyone in Switzerland who wants to use Siri AI on their iPhone needs one of the supported languages. The overview "These Apple features are missing in the EU" compiles information on which other features are also missing in the EU.
Serenity with an open flank
I believe Joswiak's composure regarding the hardware issue is justified. A new device from OpenAI first has to compete against the 2.5 billion Apple devices that people already own and use daily. However, the fact that Apple is simultaneously taking legal action against precisely this project doesn't quite align with his apparent calm.
For readers in German-speaking countries, the fact that Apple's AI promise for "ordinary people" has not yet been fulfilled is a more significant concern. As long as Siri AI neither runs on iPhones in the EU nor understands German, the strategy remains just a pipe dream for most Siri AI enthusiasts in this region.
Would you try an AI device from OpenAI if it didn't require an iPhone – or will the smartphone remain the place where AI happens for you? Let us know your opinion in the comments.
