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Building the RealOS through hybrid intelligent layers

Weeknotes 356 - Building the RealOS through hybrid intelligent layers - Looking for hints in the presentation of the new iPhones and beyond, connecting human with physical AI. And more from the news of last week.

Building the RealOS through hybrid intelligent layers
Interpretation by Midhourney

Dear reader!

Welcome if you are new to this weekly reflection on the news on human-AI-things collaborations and more, impacting personal and societal life.

Week 356: Building the RealOS through hybrid intelligent layers

This evening, there will be a new iPhone introduced. The main characteristics are leaked as always, so the really interesting things to follow are the subtexts.

Last week, there was a bit of preluding, as always, with lots of leaks. That is common now. But there might be surprises. Will be.

Also, last week, I had a nice conversation with a podcast on human-AI-thing collaborations. I expect it will be online this week, will let you know. And for the rest, I was doing some final preparations for the charrette. And also, been working on the refocusing of Cities of Things. Or better said, update the narrative to what is already the focus.

This week’s triggered thought

As Apple unveils its latest iPhones today, “Awe-dropping”, there will be sleek new hardware upgrades or design refreshes I am more interested in the hints to the role the iPhone will take in the next iteration of our digital lifeworld: What if your phone evolved from a mere communication device into an intelligence layer for the entire physical world?

I've been discussing here concepts like "immersive AI" and "AI in the physical world." These ideas point toward a future where artificial intelligence isn't contained within specific apps or services but becomes an ambient material overlaying our reality—a constant presence that transforms how we interact with our surroundings.

The shift is already underway in how we interact with technology. Voice interfaces have evolved from awkward novelties to natural communication channels with our devices. This behavioral adaptation—speaking to our technology rather than typing or tapping—is the precursor to a world where conversation becomes our primary interface with both digital and physical environments. As Katie puts it in Every: there is a new form of thinking out loud emerging with AI voice.

So imagine AI not as something you deliberately access but as a persistent layer of intelligence that mediates your experience of the world. Your phone becomes less a device you manipulate and more an ambassador that connects you to this intelligence ecosystem.

We're already seeing the building blocks: LiDAR scanners that map physical spaces, on-device AI processing, and increasingly sophisticated voice interfaces. But what if Apple is working toward something more profound—let’s call it "RealOS".

RealOS wouldn't just be another operating system upgrade. It would fundamentally reframe your relationship with technology and physical space. Your phone would serve as the computational bridge between you and ordinary objects that lack built-in intelligence. We can expect that all of our physical context that has computational capabilities embedded will become intelligence touchpoints. But there will be a vast amount of unconnected stuff we use. For that, we need a new layer that we can add from our intelligent super devices. These create hybrid objects where your ‘phone’ provides the intelligence layer that contextualizes them. Your phone becomes the interpreter that brings intelligence to ordinary objects through context, understanding, and the ability to layer digital information onto physical reality. RealOS will be the operating system of the physical lifeworld that combines intelligent devices and hybrid devices.

This creates the possibilities for real human-AI-things collaboration. You could have interactions with your environment without the physical world needing to be rebuilt with embedded computers. The implications extend beyond convenience. This approach could create new experiences of physical space—not just unlocking data or answering questions, but developing a more embodied relationship with our surroundings. The world becomes not just a place you navigate, but an environment you converse with.

Should we pursue this future? I'm not automatically advocating for it. We must carefully consider what it means when intelligence becomes ambient rather than deliberate—when we no longer choose to access AI but live within its constant presence. What happens to attention, privacy, and our relationship with physical reality when everything becomes potentially interactive?

Yet this evolution seems inevitable. The question isn't whether our physical and digital worlds will merge through ambient intelligence, but how thoughtfully we design that merger.

So while I don't expect Apple to announce "RealOS" at tonight's keynote, I'll be watching for the weak or strong signals that point in this direction—the framing of features that hint at a future where your iPhone isn't just a intelligent phone, but a node to create a variant of RealOS and unlocking new relationship between humans, AI, and things.

Notions from last week’s news

Preview:

Understanding the Rehash Loop
When AI Gets Stuck
O'Reilly MediaAndrew Stellman
As EV sales continue to plummet, Elon Musk says Optimus robots will make up 80% of Tesla’s value, despite production delays
Part four of Tesla’s “Master Plan” de-emphasizes its EV business, which is on pace for its second consecutive year of declining global sales.
FortuneSasha Rogelberg
AI could bring us a smarter home — if we can trust it
Your home, in control?
The VergeJennifer Pattison Tuohy
Petrified factuality
It took a while, but I finally finished rereading Georg Lukács’s “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat.” The last time I read it must have been in the “Web 2.0” era, because I had made some marginal notes about the “general intellect” and the commodification of the self in social media as a kind of proletarianization.
Internal exileRob Horning

Human-AI partnerships

Robotic performances

Immersive connectedness

Tech societies

Weekly paper to check

Research on GenAI in creative contexts remains in its early stages, with few attempts made to assess the current body of research or synthesise the existing knowledge in this area. To address this gap, this paper employs a systematic literature review of 64 studies to identify methods, research trends and key thematic insights shaping the current understanding of GenAI in creative contexts.

Heigl, R. Generative artificial intelligence in creative contexts: a systematic review and future research agenda. Manag Rev Q (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-025-00494-9

What’s up for the coming week?

Have a great week!

About me

I'm an independent researcher through co-design, curator, and “critical creative”, working on human-AI-things relationships. You can contact me if you'd like to unravel the impact and opportunities through research, co-design, speculative workshops, curate communities, and more.

Cities of Things, Wijkbot, ThingsCon, Civic Protocol Economies.