Further clues about Apple's yet-to-be-announced smart displays have been discovered in tvOS.
9to5 Mac
As the saying goes, there's no smoke, there's no fire.
Following up on my post last week about Apple's as-yet-unannounced (but apparently in development) “home accessory” smart display device, Juli Clover of MacRumors wrote about the latest tvOS 18 beta earlier this week, which includes what she describes as a “unique touchscreen interface” codenamed “PlasterBoard” embedded within the software. This potential UI, which Clover claims was spotted by 9to5 Mac, appears to be barebones at the moment. Clover reports that “it only has a lock screen and a touch-based keyboard for entering a passcode, and not much else has been discovered.” As she points out, Apple TV boxes running tvOS currently don't have a keypad for the passcode. Clover writes that the keypad would be similar to what's already on the iPhone and iPad, and that the HomePad will have a basic touchscreen on top.
For the sake of completeness, we should note that, according to Clover, PlasterBoard joins its codenamed siblings SpringBoard for iOS and iPadOS, PineBoard for tvOS, SoundBoard for ‌HomePod‌, and, more recently, SurfBoard for visionOS.
As always, Apple will not officially confirm or deny the existence of a product that is so-called in the pipeline. The fact that some brave developers have dug up evidence of this supposed smart display by digging through the back-end code will likely leave Apple’s management a bit perplexed, as the company loves surprises. However, from a disability perspective, the emergence of more evidence about this unannounced smart display should be welcome news for accessibility. As I wrote last week, having a smart display in the kitchen to control countless Nest devices and other smart home gadgets is much more accessible than carrying a smartphone around the house. As a former user of Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Home Hub, I would much rather use an Apple-made smart display, not only because of the accessibility features and such, but also because it would obviously support my preferred smart home platform of HomeKit.
The Apple ecosystem is as powerful as Krazy Glue is for me and for many disabled people who value accessibility and convenience.
I received this Anker MagSafe charging station for my desk this week. Of particular note in relation to the rumored smart display is that the charging pad allows you to dock your phone sideways (landscape mode) and enter what Apple calls standby mode. According to the company, standby allows users to “turn your iPhone into a bedside clock, photo frame, full-screen display with widgets and live activity, and more.” But even if it's not stated, if you combine standby with the smart display talk, you can reasonably assume that iPhone standby is a Trojan horse to a future “HomePod with a screen.” That is, Apple is using standby as a test bed for features (clock, widgets, notifications, etc.) that are certainly relevant to other, larger screen locations: smart displays.
This concept is not new. Any Apple watcher knows that Apple releases new technologies bit by bit in preparation for something bigger to come in the future. Examples of this include the addition of Size Class API and HealthKit in 2014, which foreshadowed the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and Apple Watch, respectively. Similarly, the introduction of ARKit in 2017 was a tacit acknowledgement of Apple’s Vision Pro efforts. This partially explains why Apple rumors are so lucrative. If you pay close enough attention, it becomes relatively easy to keep track of what’s coming out of Apple Park in Cupertino. Moreover, sometimes these interesting nerdy rumors take an extreme application to accessibility in interesting ways that transcend the bespoke accessibility features most people associate with it.
I don't usually get too excited about Apple rumors, but this one is an exception, so it's appropriate to end this article the same way I did last time: Apple's upcoming smart display will round out my HomeKit setup and lend further credence to the idea that smart home technology is as much about accessibility as it is convenience for all people with disabilities.