Jony Ive’s OpenAI Hardware Delayed to 2027 Amid Trademark Battle and Super Bowl Hoax
Toggle Dark Mode
The Jony Ive-designed AI device that was initially expected to be released by OpenAI this year won’t see a release until next year, according to new court filings shared by Wired.
The delay stems from a 2025 trademark infringement lawsuit filed by audio device startup iyO. The firm sued OpenAI following the AI company’s acquisition of io, a startup founded by Ive, Apple’s former design chief.
OpenAI originally announced that the Ive-designed ChatGPT-powered device, reportedly code-named “Dime” or “Sweetpea,” would be released before the end of 2026. However, a new filing from OpenAI says the company’s first hardware device won’t hit store shelves before the end of February 2027. The documents also indicate that OpenAI has not yet created any packaging or marketing materials for the device.
As reported by TechCrunch, the startup became involved in a trademark dispute after the name of the device, “io,” was challenged by “iyO,” a Google-backed hardware startup that makes custom-molded earpieces. The court ordered OpenAI to pull down all references to “io,” but the company decided to fight the allegations of trademark infringement.
Now, the filing says OpenAI had been reviewing its product strategy and had “decided not to use the name ‘io’ (or ‘IYO,’ or any capitalization of either) in connection with the naming, advertising, marketing, or sale of any artificial intelligence-enabled hardware products.”
We first reported on Jony Ive’s partnership with OpenAI last May, when the former Apple design chief was hinting only at “the next big thing” — a physical product that was not pitched as a wearable, but as a “third core device” that would sit in your pocket or on your desk alongside a MacBook Pro and iPhone.
Ive’s device will be something more than the ill-fated Humane pin or Rabbit R1 personal assistant. “Those were very poor products,” Ive said in the Bloomberg interview. “There has been an absence of new ways of thinking expressed in products.” Altman echoed this, describing the device as a “lakeside cottage” for your digital life, designed to filter noise rather than amplify it.
Previously, we’ve heard rumors that the gadget would fit in your pocket and would be contextually aware of your surroundings and life. Plus, the device will be screenless.
One of the allegations that iyO brought against the new startup was that it was trying to create an in-ear device that would potentially infringe on what iyO is working on. However, in a declaration filed with the court , Altman-Ive venture co-founder Tang Tan noted that wearables, earbuds, headphones, and hearing aids were merely part of “a broad range of form factors” the startup considered.
Since Tang is a former Apple executive who worked on designing wearable devices for that company, and meetings between Tang and Altman and iyO engineers were held, it’s not hard to see how iyO’s executives may have made that leap.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is said to have told OpenAI staff the device is “the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen” after testing Ive’s prototype at home.
Rumors of the new device ramped up over the weekend when a now-deleted Reddit post claimed that OpenAI had sprung for a Super Bowl ad to unveil its upcoming device before pulling it at the last minute. The purportedly “leaked” ad video featured actor Alexander Skarsgård, star of Apple TV’s Murderbot, wearing silver headphones and interacting with a reflective, puck-like device. The video went viral on social media, including being shared by Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, before OpenAI confirmed this morning that the ad was a hoax. While OpenAI did run a legitimate Super Bowl ad, this was focused solely on its Codex AI coding agent.
