Mr. No One & Tech

Humane is looking for a buyer after the AI Pin’s underwhelming debut

Apparently Humane thinks it’s worth upwards of $1 billion.

The Verge

What is the AI Pin? Forget features. It's a product looking for a customer. From the Verge,

The product was pitched at least partially as a way for people to be more present and reduce their ever-growing dependence on smartphones.

The AI Pin may or may not be a flawed product. I don't know. I don't want to own one and never read reviews or followed news about it until recently. That said, the AI Pin feels like it started with the solution and then looked for a problem it could solve. I'm going to ignore the idea that, in the end, their solution did not do a good job of solving the problem they chose.

The AI Pin is not the first product to miss its intended audience. Apple has several products that left me scratching my head when they were announced. The  Watch was a "new way to communicate."  Vision Pro "makes meetings more meaningful."

All three products offered a new way to do something that may or may not be better. However, for the common customer, these products do not hit the mark on features people want. Apple understood this early with the  Watch and has done a tremendous job pivoting to a feature set that sells millions of watches annually.

I still feel the original iPhone is the high point in building and marketing a product. It was a better iPod, a better phone, and the best mobile internet device. Mobile phones were on the upswing in 2007, and if you wanted features like Visual Voicemail, a simpler interface, and better apps, you saw the value in paying for an (expensive) iPhone. Technology is more expensive but cooler than ever. However, when that technology is created for problems that are non-existent to most people, the cost of that technology is too high.