OnePlus Co-Founder Carl Pei Criticizes Apple, Says ‘Innovation Has Slowed Down a Lot’

BY Sanuj Bhatia

Published 11 May 2021

OnePlus Co-Founder Carl Pei, who has now left the company, has criticized Apple in the latest interview with CNBC. Carl claims, that the innovation has slowed down ‘a lot’ in the company, and today’s tech is now starting to feel ‘cold.’

Carl Pei, now Co-Founder and CEO of IoT products company Nothing, has shed some light on the state of tech today. He claims that the ‘products are not just cold electronics.’ He says that electronics has reached the stage of the 1980s when every computer was just a grey box.

The 31-year old tech entrepreneur says he was once Apple’s “biggest fan” but that, over the last couple years, “it just felt like, as a whole, innovation has slowed down a lot.”

Carl claims that Apple was once a game-changer of the technology sector when the company disrupted the PC market with the introduction of the iMac G3. The company did it again with the iPhone, shifting everybody from a touchpad phone to a touchscreen smartphone. But in recent years, the company’s innovation has slowed down.

“There’s a general feeling of, ‘Why should I upgrade my tech?’ because each new generation is sort of similar to the previous one” Pei added. “In the past, people were so optimistic about technology. But now people are kind of indifferent. And there must be a way of kind of breaking the cycle.”

This comes amid the rumors of Apple introducing its first mixed reality, or AR/VR, headset in the upcoming WWDC 2021.

Carl’s company, Nothing, is going to release a new product next month. As revealed by the company, its first product is truly wireless earbuds called ‘Ear 1’ and aims to head-to-head with Apple’s AirPods. It is said to feature 20 different levels of noise cancellation and is said to come in a “retro-futuristic” design.

“We want to bring this element of human warmth back into our products,” Carl said in his interview with CNBC.

What are your thoughts on Carl’s comments? Do you think tech innovation has slowed down? What products are you looking towards from Apple in the coming months? Drop a comment and let us know!

[Via CNBC]