Jony Ive says Rabbit and Humane made bad products

While announcing a reportedly $6.5 billion team-up on AI hardware between his startup, io, and OpenAI, Jony Ive spoke to Bloomberg and commented on last year’s attempts at making AI hardware happen, the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin: There have been public failures as well, such as the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit […]

May 21, 2025 - 23:50

Jony Ive says Rabbit and Humane made bad products

While announcing a reportedly $6.5 billion team-up on AI hardware between his startup, io, and OpenAI, Jony Ive spoke to Bloomberg and commented on last year’s attempts at making AI hardware happen, the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin:

There have been public failures as well, such as the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 personal assistant device. “Those were very poor products,” said Ive, 58. “There has been an absence of new ways of thinking expressed in products.”

In a statement emailed to The Verge, Rabbit founder Jesse Lyu called Ive his “hero,” saying, “It’s an honor to get mentioned by Jony Ive and Sam Altman about rabbit and rabbit r1. However, we don’t like to be put side by side with Humane, a company that stopped trying, got acquired, and shut down.” You can read his comments in their entirety below.

Our initial reviews certainly backed up Ive’s impression, as David Pierce said the Pin “doesn’t work,” and called the R1 “a worse and less functional version of your smartphone.”

Humane, which, like io, was led by former Apple employees, has already disappeared into the mist of an acquihire by HP and shut down all AI Pins in February.

The Rabbit R1 is still going, even if its “large action model” hype and momentum appear to have dissipated. Earlier this month, the company added a memory log that can help its AI assistant have context for interactions. It’s also offering a free a free trial of Intern, its “upgraded AI-native operating system that coordinates multiple agents to get things done,” even if you don’t own an R1, as it continues to work on rabbitOS 2.0.

Jesse Lyu, founder and CEO of Rabbit:

First of all, Jony Ive is my hero. His work has inspired me since my teenage years, so much so that I decided to follow his path and create a startup to build dedicated experiences with both hardware and software.
rabbit is one of the first companies exploring the new AI era and thinking deeply about the new definition of human-machine interaction, just like the original Macintosh or iPhone.
It’s an honor to get mentioned by Jony Ive and Sam Altman about rabbit and rabbit r1. However, we don’t like to be put side by side with Humane, a company that stopped trying, got acquired, and shut down.
On the flipside, for a small team like rabbit, we don’t have tremendous resources, $6.4 billion, like Jony and Sam have. We acknowledge that when r1 first rolled out, the experience was rough and we needed to fix the early product issues. The fact is that today we’re still working hard and keep improving the experience. We’ll see what rabbit can offer by 2026.
It’s a great honor that Jony and Sam, both of whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for, decided to join rabbit in this new adventure to create their own product. We welcome all competition, whether it’s from big companies or startups. I believe healthy competition will benefit the end customer. I’m personally very excited to see the next magic that Jony will create, and rabbit will learn a lot from his work.
As a startup with limited resources like rabbit, it will always be a David vs Goliath situation. However, it’s always exciting when Goliath is the legendary Jony Ive.

Update, May 21st: Added response from Rabbit’s CEO.