Apple hires Smart Lock's startup CEO to help create products for the home

He tried to sell a $ 700 smart lock. His start-up went bankrupt, leaving employees and contractors cold. But now he's working for Apple – and is leading a new smart home initiative to get started, according to a CNBC report.

To be honest, Otto, the company of Sam Jadallah's smart locks, produced exactly the kind of gadget that we expected from Apple: a meticulously crafted device that conjures up luxury but with a Minimalist external design that does not attract too much attention itself. And at Apple, he does not have to worry about finding investors to keep his ideas afloat. (In 2018, Jadallah blamed Otto's death on a mystery buyer who retired at the last moment.)

But the interesting part of this story is not the one for which Apple chose to run a smart home initiative, but it could launch a new smart home initiative. at all.

So far, Apple has simply let other companies build devices for its HomeKit ecosystem. While you can claim that Apple's HomePod smart speaker is an exception to the rule, it's clear from the first day that HomePod is more of a loudspeaker than smart.

But slowly, Apple seems to have realized that Siri had to become smarter. The company dismantled Google 's director for AI to improve Siri, to put him in charge of all Apple' s AI efforts and to promote him to the rank of senior manager this winter. Just this week, we discovered that Apple had bought the artificial intelligence startup behind conversation features such as Mattel's Hello Barbie.

Yet none of this necessarily points to the House, rather than just improving Siri to answer questions. But this rental, and CNBCThe report, done. Frankly, Alexa and Amazon's Google Assistant have become more useful in controlling more things at home. If Apple wants to create the type of ecosystem (and perhaps soon integrated) enjoyed by Amazon and Google, it may be time to play a more active role.

CNBC Apple and Jadallah refused to comment on his report, but it should be noted that Jadallah has retweeted. People usually do not do it if there is a major factual error in a story. He also changed his LinkedIn page to reflect his new job at Apple.