Apple-OpenAI Relationship Frays, Setting Up Possible Legal Fight

56 pointsposted 6 hours ago
by helsinkiandrew

30 Comments

Danox

5 hours ago

What fight? OpenAI is getting nothing from Apple just like Bloomberg is not getting any money for me to read their article.

mrhottakes

5 hours ago

I can only see the first couple of paragraphs, but it's OpenAI following in the footsteps of every other company that doesn't have a viable product: litigation.

layer8

4 hours ago

While (presumably) no money was exchanged, Apple and OpenAI entered a contractual agreement, and apparently OpenAI believes that Apple hasn’t met its contractual obligations.

khazhoux

5 hours ago

I lol’d at this because I also didn’t pay for access. But… aren’t we all just hypocrites and kind of jerks to not give even a few dollars to people out there doing reporting and providing us with information? “Ads and tracking are bad, boo! Pay $5 for a subscription — hell no!”

neurocline

4 hours ago

I used to spend money on Bloomberg’s news magazine (newspaper), but stopped because it’s a distant second to the Economist.

GrinningFool

4 hours ago

While subscriptions can net you ad-free content, they rarely let you have it tracking-free.

manquer

4 hours ago

lol wish Bloomberg was that cheap . Last time I renewed It was like 280/yr and retail is like $35/month.

Still probably worth it , financial news publishers generally have less bias[1]/sensationalism than general broadsheets. Bloomberg/FT have been by my go to for factual news without too much hyperbole , click bait.

[1] There will be pro-business bias of course which in US these days I think as outside the political spectrum , both parties have very bad polices for businesses or labour.

user

4 hours ago

[deleted]

frb

3 hours ago

I don’t get it.

OpenAI was dreaming of some billions from this partnership that didn’t happen.

Assuming there is a contract with rights, obligations and responsibilities both parties signed, I can’t imagine a company like Apple exposing itself by not honoring their part.

So sue for what? “We dreamt of more and it didn’t happen”?

JKCalhoun

5 hours ago

It sounds like Apple is re-learning the lesson that relying on a 3rd party can be a liability.

mrbungie

4 hours ago

Pretty sure Apple can survive a legal war like this. On the other hand, it sounds like OpenAI is punching above its weight.

pjmlp

4 hours ago

Now they can, 30 years ago not really.

mrbungie

4 hours ago

Ofc, they were practically dying 30 years ago. But I can't really see why that's is relevant here.

pjmlp

3 hours ago

Just a heads up, because many weren't even around and think Apple was always printing money.

weezing

2 hours ago

Still makes no sense to bring this up now

layer8

4 hours ago

It sounds more like OpenAI has learned a lesson here.

Analemma_

5 hours ago

If I’m reading this correctly, OpenAI is upset because Apple hasn’t made their features visible enough yet.

Which seems like a bonkers reason to try and sue, and one which could backfire spectacularly on them, if Apple sends people into court to testify under oath that OpenAI’s features didn’t ship because they didn’t meet quality bars.

(Also, between this and the “please try Enterprise Codex, we’ll give you two months of free credits” announcement from a couple days ago, there’s a real whiff of desperation coming from OpenAI lately. They must really be feeling the heat from Anthropic)

baggachipz

5 hours ago

I think they're feeling the heat from their promised IPO and having to file a S1.

malshe

5 hours ago

Pretty much this is the reason.

stock_toaster

4 hours ago

Also, discovery on the OpenAI side seems like it would be especially juicy.

I am dubious that this is anything other than a marketing/bluster/distraction tactic from OpenAI though.

kylehotchkiss

5 hours ago

Our country can't make good movies or TV anymore so bring on the courthouse drama

jmuguy

4 hours ago

I keep hoping that Apple is going to pull out some sort of local LLM you run on your larger/more capable Mac hardware and then has a slick interface for control from your iPhone and iPad. I think/hope they've realized that using ChatGPT to create slop content isn't really the best use of AI, nor is it what Apple users actually care about.

password4321

2 hours ago

I wished I'd picked up an M3 Studio with 512GB of RAM back in the day!

iAMkenough

4 hours ago

I’d love to see them bring back “Back to My Mac” into the Apple ecosystem. Access home resources tied to your Apple account without installing anything.

Apple TV-esque home hub with wireless router and local LLM capabilities would be clutch for people without desktop Macs.

tencentshill

2 hours ago

Rumor is that they intend to make a home hub. I suspect it was delayed due to Siri AI not being ready.

drcongo

3 hours ago

Finally some good news.

brcmthrowaway

4 hours ago

This closes a very painful chapter for Apple.

The reactive rather than proactive strategy circa 23-24 is now telling. The market/tech zeitgeist forced their hand into producing the flop Apple Intelligence and partnership with OpenAI. Their leaders were caught sleeping at the wheel, particularly ineffective was John Gianneadrea (who was subsequently forced out).

In addition, they have lost talent in consumer devices to OpenAI, though it remains to be seen whether they themselves can produce something better than Humane (also ex-Apple folks)

No doubt Apple is working on something in the background, and there are sparks of hope for them in the ML community with Local LLMs on Apple Silicon.

mrbungie

5 hours ago

The article makes it sound like OpenAI is really entitled in this one. Also legal action is obviously going to be a strong signal of OpenAI's friendliness /s.