
A dashboard for my apartment - drgenehack
http://iinteractive.com/notebook/2015/03/06/a-dashboard-for-my-apartment.html
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gshrikant
This is a project that I've wanted to do for so long. I agree with the
author's opinion about people making custom-fit apps for themselves.
Programming is less taxing than other home improvement techniques like say,
carpentry, (although that may very well be my lack of skill with the tools
which make it so) while resulting in a similarly satisfying outcome.

Also, For some reason, this reminded this [1] article which was discussed on
HN recently.

[1] [http://gizmodo.com/why-is-my-smart-home-so-fucking-
dumb-1684...](http://gizmodo.com/why-is-my-smart-home-so-fucking-
dumb-1684949715)

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jakobegger
Is it possible to trick the magnet sensor used for instant unlocking with the
smart cover? Might be possible to come up with either a mechanical switch
involving a magnet, or an electronic one with a solenoid, that instantky
unlocks the ipad?

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sartakdotorg
Author here. Happy to explain any technical details I left out :)

~~~
chainsaw10
If you really want to disable that Guided Access pop-up message, I think
there's a way to do it. It's called "Single App Mode". You use Apple's
Configurator to enable it through a configuration profile, and it literally
locks the iPad into booting directly into that app, and you cannot disable it
without connecting the iPad to (presumably the same?) computer and removing
the profile.

The downsides are:

1\. You have to put the iPad into supervised mode, which requires a full
factory reset through the Configurator. This is because it enables a bunch of
enterprise controls that they don't want enabled without the user's knowledge,
such as the ability to configure a global HTTP proxy, etc.

2\. As I mentioned before, there is literally no way out of the app other than
removing the configuration profile. This sounds like it interferes with your
use case, but maybe it's a worthwhile tradeoff for you?

3\. Probably something else I didn't think of.

Here are a couple articles I found that mention how to do this:

[0] and [1] are articles from some app that this feature is useful for,
explaining how to do it for that app.

[0]:
[http://support.kioskproapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/413366...](http://support.kioskproapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/413366-setting-
up-single-app-mode-with-apple-configurat)

[1]:
[http://support.kioskproapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/315259](http://support.kioskproapp.com/knowledgebase/articles/315259)

Disclaimer: I have never tried this myself, I have simply happened to have
heard of it. I found the two articles above because I knew the term to Google
(not a shot at you, sometimes you just need to know the right search). There
may be some unintended consequences because it's an enterprise feature and
all.

~~~
mtone
Another way to address the original problem is jailbreaking and using the
Activator app to assign the home button to "unlock", which effectively auto-
unlocks the device to whatever app you had open.

I find it quite a usability improvement, when using the tablet as a cookbook
for example.

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whiskykilo
Well done! I'd love something along those lines as well, since my iPad is
generally dead most of the time, never being used.

~~~
bshimmin
I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I really want to like tablets, and have owned (and subsequently given away)
several iPads, but they just never seem to have a clear place in my life: I
have my phone with me most of the time because it fits conveniently in my
pocket, and a significant chunk of the rest of the time I'm sat in front of a
proper computer; there isn't really enough of a gap left between those two
categories of devices that I'd need a third to fill it.

(I also like physical books and haven't really installed very many apps on my
phone. Perhaps I'm just a Luddite.)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Some will react in horror, but my use case for my ancient iPad 1 is, as I'm
doing right now, reading in the bath. My phone is both too valuable and too
small to fulfil this 'need' safely, and the iPad hardly handles anything other
than basic web browsing anymore. Still, since it probably qualifies as a
collector's item nowadays, I might stop doing this...

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halosghost
+1 primarily for mention of forecast.io; I'd never heard of it, and it makes
me quite excited!

All the best,

