Ipad & Velcro Marriage | Hacker News Reader

Ipad & Velcro Marriage

holykaw.alltop.com

64 pointsmcdowall20 comments

Don't actually do the car velcro mount. There's a reason every car owner's manual says to never do this - if the airbag deploys, the passenger will have the iPad embedded in their skull.

I wouldn't rate the motorcycle velcro mount high on my list of safety-conscious ideas, either.

Lots of tourers stick a paper map up there. If it's the 3G iPad following your location with the Little Blue Dot™, you could glance down to see upcoming streets/turns/merges. But yeah, for God's sake don't multitask on a motorcycle.

compared to a paper map, iPad's screen is hard to see outside during daylight hours though

what about rear seat iPad entertainment system?

I'm sure I can find a way to do it on top of my current car stereo, in the car I listen to Pandora anyway

Or fully in your dash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSnIXfoSU6I

The glue on velcro tends to melt and become a very gooey mess in extreme heat too. It wouldn't work well in summer heat.

Or don't leave it there if you have a front seat passenger. Or only do it in an old car without front-seat airbags.

I am actually tempted to get one to stick on my wall now. Though I'm not sure if I trust the velcro enough.

"Professional strength" velcro is some tough stuff. Kept a huge board heavier than an iPad on the wall for two years; when I had to remove the velcro from the wall, it took chunks with it.

In matters of real-world safety, hard rules like "never attach it there" are MUCH better heuristics than "don't attach it there in the wrong situation."

If you're interested in setting rules for other people to follow so you don't get sued, then yes.

If you're interested in taking care of yourself and those around you, you can usually exercise some common sense.

Ah, common sense. The silent killer. ;)

For example:

don't leave it there if you have a front seat passenger

Even if you try really hard to mount the iPad such that it is precisely centered on the passenger-seat air bag -- which you probably won't do; that's awfully far away from the driver -- how sure are you that an air bag deployment won't launch the thing toward the driver? Or cause a ricochet?

Not all that sure. However I do know that it's pretty low on the list of things that are likely to kill me in the event of a car crash.

If I want to optimize for the minimization of my small yet non-negligible chance of dying in a car crash I'd gain a much larger effect by trading in my current car for a Volvo rather than removing my dash-mounted iPad. I'd get an even better effect by improving my driving habits; not listening to music while driving, never ever exceeding the speed limit and only driving when absolutely necessary.

But sometimes we trade off safety for convenience.

Or don't leave it there if you have a front seat passenger.

The primary use case appears to be something fun for the front seat passenger to play with. Oops.

It's corny and silly, but as an instructional video, it's excellent. No dialog, no wasted effort, just teaching and demonstration in action. Feels like the first 40 minutes of WALL-E.

Now all he needs is a velcro glove to hold the iPad comfortably with one hand.

Ironic that I couldn't see the video (or that a video was there at all) on my iPad.

How far off is a heads-up display? That would change the game.

EDIT http://www.microvision.com/vehicle_displays/head_up_displays... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display

These things are expensive, but electronics get cheap fast.

Now all it needs is inductive charging.

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