I hope Apple’s robot iPad is a lot less impressive than it sounds

We’ve seen various claims about Apple’s interest in robotics, from a fully-fledged domestic robot to what we might think of as a robot iPad screen that can turn to face you.

I’ve already expressed my skepticism about the domestic robot, and at first glance it’s a little hard to see how the latest report could pass the “say no to a thousand things” test …

Apple could do anything

Clearly a company with Apple’s resources could tackle any project it liked. There isn’t a product category it couldn’t enter if it had the desire, and you only have to skim through some of the company’s patents to see that it plays around with a lot of different ideas.

As I said about the domestic robot, I’m certainly willing to believe Apple has a team working on it, I just don’t believe it will ever launch.

This type of capability, at a price which comes anywhere near even Apple consumer pricing, is almost certainly well over a decade away. Probably two. We’ll get a Level 5 self-driving car before we get an Apple Robot.

So does it really make sense to give up on one project, which might have been realizable in ten years, to instead work on another, which almost certainly isn’t? I fully believe Bloomberg that Apple is playing with this idea, but my bet is that, like the car, it never materializes.

‘Say no to a thousand things’

Steve Jobs famously said that Apple is successful because, for every time it says yes to a new product idea, it says no to a thousand other ideas.

The company likes to focus on doing a very small number of things very well, so when it does choose to move into a new product category, there has to be a very persuasive reason to do so.

Vision Pro is a good example of this. Clearly the current product is a very expensive device with a very niche market. But it represents the first step toward what will eventually become a mass-market consumer product. The long-term … vision … is some kind of Apple Glasses product.

I think (and hope) this is more basic than it sounds

My first reaction when I read Bloomberg’s report on a robot arm device was “why would Apple say no to a thousand things, and yes to this?”

The company now has a team of several hundred people working on the device, which uses a thin robotic arm to move around a large screen, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The product, which relies on actuators to tilt the display up and down and make it spin 360 degrees […] is envisioned as a smart home command center, videoconferencing machine and remote-controlled home security tool

All of which made it sound rather intricate.

But assuming this ever launches, I suspect Gurman, or his sources, are making this sound rather more sophisticated than it will actually turn out to be.

Take that “smart home command center” phrase. I mean, any iPhone or iPad running the Home app fits that description.

“Videoconferencing machine” … any iPad supporting Center Stage ticks that box pretty well.

“Remote-controlled home security tool” – that need be nothing more than a camera with pan-and-tilt features, which is commonplace even in budget models.

So none of this need involve anything more revolutionary than we’ve already seen from the likes of Amazon’s Echo Show 10, the (discontinued) Meta Portal, or the Pixel Tablet with its Charging Speaker Dock.

What about that robotic arm?

Apple will want its own device to stand out design-wise, but a ‘robot arm’ needn’t involve anything which can articulate. Perhaps it will take inspiration from one of my favorite Apple designs, the G4 iMac seen on the left in the main photo at the top?

But still, I’m not seeing value in a device which combines a HomePod and iPad in one.

What would make sense to me?

What would make sense is the approach Google took with its tablet: A speaker to which the tablet magnetically attaches.

In other words, the Magic Keyboard attachment for a speaker.

With the iPad controlling it, the speaker could essentially use the same software that powers Center Stage, but this time pass commands to the speaker dock to rotate or pitch the iPad up or down as required.

So if anything at all launches, I think (and very much hope) it will be this. Keep the iPad we already have, and buy as many speaker docks as we want. In the worst of cases, and the iPad requires some new hardware feature to control the dock, then at least we still retain the ability to use the iPad on or off the dock as desired.

What’s your view? Please take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.

iMac G4 photo: Apple. Concept image: 9to5Mac using Apple images.