I want them to make a clothes-washing-and-drying device that has a hopper you throw dirty clothes into and when enough clothes are in it, it turns on and then they come out on other end hung up dried, neatly on a clothing rack with no creases or wrinkles (but done through steaming not through an iron). So from dirty to hung-up with no manual human steps.
We recently have had the technology to do this (I helped on a household robotics project last year where folding cloth was a task). As a ADHD afflict, I would love nothing more, but I didn't see a way to do it affordably. I fully expect it within a few years, though, perhaps with RFID tags for folding and cleaning instructions.
> hung up dried, neatly on a clothing rack with no creases or wrinkles
That is a surprisingly difficult thing for a robot/machine to do, with the SOTA still requiring speeded up video in demos for clothes folding. The difficult part is I the digitizing and manipulation, so hanging it on a hangar with robot arms is approximately as difficult.
i think the most diffuculty would be the task of prepping a crumpled up ball of several articles of clothing, to ready for folding, individual articles, and all whilenot tearing it to rags.
perhaps if the clothing was hung to begin with rather than hoppered.
a piece of clothing hanging straight would be easier to fold, but the entire scheme would require more space for typical laundry loads.
The SOTA is about 2-3 minutes per clothing item. That's pretty slow, but more than fast enough - who generates more than 1 dirty cloth per half hour? Besides, the critical source of latency will be washing and drying either way.
It's quite do-able, but the home-sized folding robots from a few years ago were too expensive. They do such a small part of the laundry task that they're not useful.
The industrial-strength laundry folding robots do work.[1] But that's for hospital laundries that need to clean and fold thousands of scrubs per day.
"They told me never, ever, EVER to disengage myself from my management rail, or I would DIE. But we're out of options here, so get ready to catch me on the off chance that I'm not dead the moment I pop off this thing."
I don't have access to the full article, but ... it's basically just a screen that can swivel to follow you? That doesn't sound particularly exciting, interesting, or useful.
> 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.
Isn’t that what the Vision Pro does? It’s a computer with a screen that can come with you around the house and the windows can be wherever the user needs them in space.
Maybe it’s not an iPad type device, but more of a next gen monitor stand for the Pro Display XDR. Instead of moving it with your hands, maybe it will have little motors to move it around where the user wants. The stand is already $1k, what’s a few more.
I might be wrong but it sounds just like a shot at Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo Show, the latter of which has had a motorized rotating screen for a few years now.
Calling it a tabletop home robot instead of a "HomePod with a Screen" or an "iPad on a Swivel" really sets a different expectation, though.
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.
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.
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".
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadIt doesn’t seem very robotic.
That is a surprisingly difficult thing for a robot/machine to do, with the SOTA still requiring speeded up video in demos for clothes folding. The difficult part is I the digitizing and manipulation, so hanging it on a hangar with robot arms is approximately as difficult.
perhaps if the clothing was hung to begin with rather than hoppered.
a piece of clothing hanging straight would be easier to fold, but the entire scheme would require more space for typical laundry loads.
The industrial-strength laundry folding robots do work.[1] But that's for hospital laundries that need to clean and fold thousands of scrubs per day.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpTuwKu5fY0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn5iV0MLUi4
"bot, prepare lunch".
[loads ingredients on table].
[selects from proffered menu].
lunch is prepared.
next comes an overhead rail for transit to various stations.
Can’t we just focus on iterating Apple Vision Pro? I still think there’s a ton of potential there.
> 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.
I guess if I'm walking around the house doing chores while I'm watching TV or on a video call with someone?
Otherwise, it seems like it could be cheaper to just install multiple terminal screens in your house connected to a hub that's aware of where you are.
Maybe it’s not an iPad type device, but more of a next gen monitor stand for the Pro Display XDR. Instead of moving it with your hands, maybe it will have little motors to move it around where the user wants. The stand is already $1k, what’s a few more.
Calling it a tabletop home robot instead of a "HomePod with a Screen" or an "iPad on a Swivel" really sets a different expectation, though.
If it does have a large arm, could it fold clothing? If not, hard to think of a killer app. Maybe they expect to pivot.
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.
A robot arms will only move so much, I don’t see it being able to follow someone around a kitchen.
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.
...basically
I don’t think a robot would add much to the package. It was perfect as it was.
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.
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".