Roger Fingas
Kawasaki this week showed off an industrial robot called "duAro" that can perfectly apply a screen protector to Apple's iPhone with no trapped air bubbles, accomplished in conjunction with Aldebaran and SoftBank's humanoid Pepper robot.
The duAro display was a part of this week's Pepper World in Tokyo, Kotaku noted on Thursday. In online video, the machine can be seen peeling film off the protectors before neatly applying them in a way that eliminates air bubbles.
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— ????(? ∞?∞)? (@nodotan) February 8, 2017
The duAro is equipped with twin arms which can work together while taking up minimal space. A linked Pepper unit can accept tasks and pass them along, Japan's ITmedia said.
Unlike many advanced robots, the Pepper is actually available to both businesses and the public. Its signature feature is the ability to react to the emotions in a person's voice and expression — from there it can serve a variety of purposes, in part through its support for apps.
Conceivably, the duAro or some equivalent could make its way to Apple stores and make it easier to apply screen protectors. While the company already has some machines for the task, a duAro could automate the procedure, possibly even letting customers do it themselves.
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
27 Comments
Is it really that difficult to apply a screen protector without bubbles? Maybe it's because I use glass and not plastic film, but I rather enjoy taking the care it requires to get it perfect. Worst case you're done in 5 minutes. Especially when you realize the robot won't clean your phone for you which is probably more
important than the application itself.
Unless you're in a highly volatile industry where you also need a case that can survive major impacts, I don't get why people want to put some cover that negatively affects the both the look and feel of the device. And by look, I don't mean the aesthetics, but the actual usability of the screen by having light diffuse in a way that isn't as ideal as designed with the alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass with an oleophobic coating.
Why not just not put a screen protector on? Problem solved! I've never used one on any of my iPhones and there are never any significant scratches in mine. There's a reason why Apple uses Gorilla Glass.
I hope this an example of the precision of the robot and not a real use case that's supposed to be compelling.
I've a glass screen protector without any bubbles on my SE. It was reasonably easy to carefully install. Should have gotten one years ago.