Xu Jialu

Feb 15, 2024

Some new stuff, some old mistakes.

Humane.

I’ve been tracking their progress since a few years back (2020) when they were still asking for angel investors and early chip ins. I remember being distinctly sus about their vague, idealistic claims, while also being cautiously optimistic.

Why? You ask.

This is why.

Industry vets, big claims, trust, truth and joy.

Humane (or, hu.ma.ne, depending on their mood) has always been a secretive company. After announcing its existence and calling for more engineers to join in on their mission to kill the smartphone, it went completely silent for another year. 

All we knew was that it was led by 2 former Apple design executives, Imran and Bethany, who of course, very cutely (cute-sy-ly? idk), have been married since working together on the iPad when it was still a nascent idea.

Hide-and-seek, but the game is over. You can come out now.

A few days ago, humane unveiled the AI Pin, the first ‘post-smartphone device’. Or so they claim it to be.

Oh dear. You hid too well.

I don’t want to pretend that what humane is doing for its brand image is new. In many ways, humane’s events and marketing is very Apple. 

That’s not always a compliment.

Apple has established itself as a brand for technical professionals and students over the years. Its materials and designs are metallic. Cold. It relies heavily on software to give its very surgical-grade aluminium devices a friendlier character. 

Humane started from where Apple currently is. That’s not a good idea.

If you want to see what I’m babbling about, go check out the AI Pin’s demo by Imran and Bethany.

The device works fine, it’s obviously very LLM driven, and it’s impressive. It’s a marriage between language models, agents, computer vision, projection mapping, good UI design, revolutionary UX design. It’s great. Barebones, but great.

But it committed the biggest sin a demo ever could. It’s not fun.

No smiles, no silly features, straight to the point, complete with awkward silences and loading times.

There’s a very good reason why most of you haven’t heard of this supposedly ‘revolutionary’ product.

To understand what went wrong, we have to go back to how these products used to be presented.

 The greatest enemy of tech startups is indifference. You cannot expect people to care. That’s why Jobs wanted the Macintosh to audibly say ‘hello’. Its important.

That’s why the iMacs look like toys, and kept their colours to this day. It evokes emotion. Its about fun, happiness, and creating memories from a purchase. 

Clarification: I think the AI Pin is one of the most exciting gadgets in recent times.

It’s our first look at what a fully AI-powered UI/UX may look like in the future. It’s using (in my opinion) the most underutilised UI medium in the tech world -- projections. 

Problems aside, the AI Pin’s UI/UX concept will open so many doors to creating applications that will hopefully make people’s lives a little easier down the road.

WWDC 2016 iMessage Demo

So smile a little :) You’ve done this before. You don’t need a 22 year old random boi to tell you what to do.

Go change the world. Just make sure they’re listening this time.