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Comment by dangus | Hacker News Reader

Is it really that unrealistic to think that Apple might want to sell their own version of a Nest Hub?

This is the old "homepod with a screen" rumour rehashed. According to those rumours Apple has been looking at putting a screen on the HomePod, and has commented publicly in the past about competitor offerings being enhanced if they had included a screen. Those competitor offerings now exist and we can see how they work.

The issue here is that Apple largely make products which reapply their existing subscription services into a new format thus growing their revenue. Google's Nest Home Hub follows this formula too, it delivers Google's services onto a screen in a place which makes consuming these services convenient. Whereby using those services Google earns revenue and the user is further entrenched into Google's ecosystem. Secondly a user may also be encouraged to upgrade to a YouTube subscription for a better experience.

So while there is nothing stopping Apple from producing similar hardware, what Apple lack here are subscription services that aren't already being served by the HomePod.

One might answer that the obvious use for this device is FaceTime and AI. However Apple currently monetises neither of these and for the types of general AI requests that such a device would handle, Apple currently engage OpenAI.

I'll give this rumour credibility if Tim Cook starts dropping hints about it; like he did repeatedly for the Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Intelligence. Until then it's just another Bloomberg Apple article with no substance - of which they have many, most famously with "the big hack".

On its own, no. With a robot arm, yes. The idea sounds absurd (at least what I could read of it before the paywall). Either it’s fake, or Apple is so desperate to innovate that they lost touch with reality and how real people actually live. At best this sounds like a little skunkworks project just to see how something like that could work, not something with hundreds of people driving toward a release.

Where would a robot arm with an iPad on the end be a better solution than Vision Pro?

> Where would a robot arm with an iPad on the end be a better solution than Vision Pro?

On my kitchen counter, where I currently have an iPad Pro that is stationary and I wish nearly every day it would follow me as I move about the kitchen whilst cooking.

I’ve seen demos of people using the Vision Pro while cooking. It seems better. Timers could be places in space about the pots on the stove, the user can interact with recipes or whatever when their hands are dirty, and they probably wouldn’t tear up while cutting onions.

A robot arms will only move so much, I don’t see it being able to follow someone around a kitchen.

I have a Vision Pro, and have tried it in the kitchen. It's too cumbersome and too visually distorting.

Speaking for myself, I don't need something that follows me all over the kitchen, just something that adjusts to my movements in a somewhat confined space. Center Stage already does this fairly well when FaceTiming.

The iMac G4 was basically an iPad on a robot arm.

...basically

I’d love an iMac M4, just the new M4 chip in the G4 body, with an updated display.

I don’t think a robot would add much to the package. It was perfect as it was.

Meh, I don’t like all-in-ones. I loved my iMac G4 at the time but there’s now no reason to tie your computer into your display permanently.

At least back then screen technology was moving so fast that you could maybe justify that waste. If you bought an iMac G4 and then your next computer was an Intel iMac you would be getting a major screen upgrade.

But now I’d say that the average person doesn’t really have any great need to buy a new display until it physically stops working.

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