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Comment by pgrote | Hacker News Reader

I have 2 original ipads that are in excellent shape. I spent a weekend looking for some way to repurpose them into photo albums that sit there are cycle through photos.

I couldn't find a working solution.

All the apps won't work properly and the browser doesn't work with things like Flikr or Google Photos.

It is a shame since the display is still awesome.

Any ideas on what to do with them?

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"Picture Frame Mode" was included with the stock iPad, prior to iOS 7. See if you can downgrade. People miss it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5345183?start=0&tstart=...

The ipad 1 is still an excellent netflix viewer.

Other things it still does (to varying degrees of success) are playing games (e.g. where’s my water, fruit ninja), taking notes, web dashboard (though sadly not general browsing), music player and alarm clock.

Some sort of jailbreaking/software modification (haven't done this in years, not really sure if it's possible?) could allow you to do what you were trying to do in the first place?

I think most versions of iOS have had a built-in slideshow function in the Photos application. Try loading up some photos onto the iPad, add to an album, and see if there's a slideshow option somewhere.

Nope. I've heard a nonstandard connection means reusing the display isn't straightforward even if you crack them open.

Best hope is jailbreaking and running custom firmware, which may open up some possibilities.

Hmmm... maybe make your own webpage that cycles through the photos? You probably don't want family photos on a public URL though...

They don't need to be public. A $5 RasPi Zero would be plenty powerful enough to serve photos on a local network.

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