Departing Apple iPhone design head Tang Tan is to work for Jony Ive on designing new AI hardware devices for OpenAI.
It was announced that Tang Tan would be leaving Apple in February 2024, but his duties have already been divided up and he is now reportedly joining Jony Ive’s LoveFrom firm. He is to work specifically on LoveFrom’s collaboration with OpenAI for a new AI hardware project.
According to Bloomberg, the veteran Apple designer will lead the project’s hardware engineering. The publication says that projects currently being considered include devices for the home, though neither OpenAI nor LoveFrom would comment.
It’s believed that the LoveFrom and OpenAI collaboration is at an early stage of developing concepts, and also hiring key staff to work on them.
Educated at MIT and Imperial College London, Tan lead the design teams for the iPhone and the Apple Watch. His long experience at Apple includes multiple patents, including a 2010 one regarding the steel bezel design of the iPhone.
Tan is only the latest designer to be poached from Apple by LoveFrom. In 2021, Ive’s company hired away four designers, ranging across hardware and software.