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Apple Working on iPad-Like Display for Controlling Smart Homes, FaceTime Chats and More
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I've seen exactly this already, for a few years now. iPad Mini in particular seems popular for this purpose... used much like a smart thermostat and permanently mounted to a wall. Here's a bunch of mounts that already exist, including options for power and wired internet. I'm sure there are many more than only those. I should have looked into what app was being used to run on it 24/7, basically making it a single app device.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Mount it on a wall with power already behind the drywall. Tap into that power. It's relatively trivial for an electrician.
Plenty of people use iPad for this, but it's not a good solution. Main issues with using iPads for this are mounting neatly and powering. Lesser issues are having the iPad OS as the main Home Screen rather than the Home app, and also having an overspecced device for this use (from a cost perspective).
This device would need to be easily and neatly mountable, have the Home view as default, if a battery is involved (assume it is if its got FaceTime) charging through the mount, etc.
It's already here,..its called an iPad. I already do this. I assume Apple will just take an old iPad display and turn it into a dumb terminal. I'm also assuming that it would include the home sensors for smoke, humidity, carbon etc.
As we were told repeatedly this past fall, when they blocked iPads from being home hubs, it is impossible for an iPad to be a home hub because someone might decide to take it out of the house and then were would you be? 😆
Why does a speaker need a display? To display album artwork? that seems like a waste.
Given how long Apple keeps older-gen devices on the shelves these days, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already. Someone just needs to tell Tim that he could still be selling the Apple Watch 3, only as a $200 light switch…
But you can already do exactly that with an iPad, is there a reason you're not currently doing that?
Some middle-level product manager at AAPL looking for a promotion: "We could put a few-revisions old iPad in a different box, throw in a stand that really just costs $5, call it HomePad, just turn on parental controls out of the factory to only access the Home App, FaceTime, and a few other things, make some self-indulgent films about it with some neat cinematic effects about how special the stand is and how it took us 12 years and thousands of hours of R&D by the world's premier stand experts to get it right, host a keynote reveal, and tell everyone how life changing using HomePad is while subtly intimating that only a philistine would use an *iPad* to do such things (the horror) and still charge 2x current gen iPad prices for it because it has a life-changing stand made of materials you only see in aircraft and surgical screws (because all devices in my home must only be made of steel sufficient to implant in my body for some reason?)!"
Fanbois everywhere: "AMAZING INNOVATION!"
Yes, I'm looking at you, all those people who paid $700 for wheels for your Mac Pro and $1,600 for a stand for a monitor. I love Apple, and, honestly, they're just helping fools part with their money with some of this stuff. And more power to them...
Fanbois everywhere: "AMAZING INNOVATION!"
Yes, I'm looking at you, all those people who paid $700 for wheels for your Mac Pro and $1,600 for a stand for a monitor. I love Apple, and, honestly, they're just helping fools part with their money with some of this stuff. And more power to them...
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Why does that picture look like a pair of butt cheeks?
That's a feature, not a bug. The butt wall paper is how it's differentiated from the iPad?
Apple is designing a new display that will be used for smart home management purposes, reports Bloomberg. The device will be a sort of low-end iPad that can be used for controlling HomeKit devices, streaming video, FaceTime calls, and more.
It is designed to be mounted to walls or other objects using magnetic fasteners, so it will be more integrated into the home than an iPad. Such a product would compete with devices like the Meta Portal or the Echo Show from Amazon.
Past rumors from Bloomberg have described this device as something akin to the HomePod and the Apple TV, meant for home use rather than use while on the go. Apple is also considering larger smart home display options, and a product that combines an Apple TV set-top box, smart speaker, and FaceTime camera is in development, but the project has suffered setbacks.
As of right now, Apple is targeting a 2024 launch for iPad-like smart home display.
Article Link: Apple Working on iPad-Like Display for Controlling Smart Homes, FaceTime Chats and More
Apple. This should be shelved.
Y?
Waste. Of. Resources.
This would offer absolutely No’tiiiing the iPhone or iPad nor watch could not do.
The office space is already cluttered with Crestron and Zoom and other competitors. Not the corporate space profit area. Ignore and shelve.
isn't that just an iPad stuck to a wall? I dont get it. Entry level iPad can do all this. This is silly.
Apple makes some incredible products. They are also incredibly good at making some that help separate fools from their money all the while making said fool feel amazing.
It's not called the reality distortion field for nothing.
(For the record, I am pretty much all-in on the Apple ecosystem, so hardly a hater, but it is a cult for some people, and Apple could polish a turd and the fan bois would be lined up to fork over a week's pay [or more], you don't become an enormously profitable company not finding every last way to extract every last dollar from the market at high margins...)
They better charge less than $200 or you might as well buy an iPad.
Hell, they should offer this for less than $100 because if you’re buying it that means you’re already neck-deep in the Apple ecosystem.