Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Universal Remote?

Which manufacturers of consumer electronics (e.g., makers of DVDs) would we expect to be cooperative with Apple? Perhaps it depends on which consider themselves partners and which consider themselves competitors. Sony could be either.
 
AidenShaw said:
Rendevous^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Bonjour is an implementation of the IETF ZeroConf (Zero Configuration Networking) working group spec, to which Apple, Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola and many other companies contributed over several years.

Apple didn't invent USB, and Apple didn't invent Zeroconf.
Click to expand...
Some history here. Zeroconf did originate with the Mac community.
 
Macrumors said:


Appleinsider points to a recent Apple patent which describes a "wireless touch-screen remote control concept that would automatically discover and communicate with existing and future consumer electronics appliances as well as the personal computer"

The patent was filed in April 2002 and describes a device which "discovers" potential devices to be controlled by the remote. Each device (such as a DVD player or iTunes app) need only be discovered once. A special XML interface would provide the remote with the interface controls to each individual device. Such technology would allow the remote to be truly "universal" without needing any prior knowledge of the device to be controlled.

Such a system would require standardization amongst electronics manufacturers to incorporate this "discoverable" remote control system to become useful.
Click to expand...
Steve Wozniak invented a remote control device very similar to that years ago, in the 1980s.
...all these pale to the next great thing he created after the Apple II: The Cloud 9 Remote Control.

Yes, friends, Cloud 9, Wozniak's high-end remote control, was the bad-assingest, mother-pimpingest remote control you could get your sweaty hands on. Where The Man wanted you to have some lame little soda straw of infra-red signal pissing along randomly to your appliances, The Cloud 9 flooded the area in rays, guaranteeing you could sit on the crapper and send the important news that the radio should go up full blast down your hallway and into the living room. If you're still skeptical, let's drop this little bit of trivia on you: The Cloud 9 had dual processors. In 1985. It had a ****ing programming manual that explained recursive coding techniques. If there was something that needed any signal to do anything, of any kind, to do something, Cloud 9 was the mack.

Cloud 9 also had the coolest phone number, ever (long since gone): 1-800-999-9999. When Cloud 9 finally choked it down, Wozniak did what Wozniak does: give the number away to a teen runaway line, where desperate youth could grab any payphone and press the 9 key over and over until someone could speak to them. For publicity? For a good name? No, because Woz is just that cool.
Click to expand...
 
tobefirst said:
My problem was not with programming it for all my devices. Rather, my problem was with the lack of tactile feedback. I don't want to have to look down at my remote everytime I want to change the channel or lower the volume or whatever else.

I need to know where the buttons are and be able to tell when I press them. Any remote that hopes to be truly universal is going to have to have some kind of touch screen, and for me personally, I'm just not sure that losing that tactile feel is worth it.

I have, however, been known to be wrong on occasion. 🙂
Click to expand...

You're right in that regard. I never look at my remote when I'm pressing the buttons, in fact the numbers etc. have worn off. That would be a major hurdle for a touchscreen remote. However the fact that the interface could change for each device and incorporate things like an iPod style scroll wheel into that changing interface would be great and the added convenience might overcome the lack of a tactile feedback.
 
iWillard said:
The apple store near me has been sold out of airport expresses for some time....
Click to expand...

Wishful thinking. Apple Store still shows them shipping within 24 hours.

I've been holding off on getting one for several months because I expected to see Airport Express 2 at WWDC. Wrong. Then I expected to see it come out with iTunes 4.9 and have some sort of AirTunes video for connecting iTunes to a TV. Wrong again. So, basically, I'm still waiting.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
How many of you have Bluetooth enabled TVs, VCRs, HiFis, etc.?

This is a truly remarkable and fantastic concept, and would work with your Mac, but until Bluetooth (or another short range networking protocol using radio) has become some kind of de facto standard I don't see a widespread application for it (remember almost all remote controls today use IR, and IrDA is not suited for this kind of scheme).

But sometime, in the near future, it would be nice to replace all the remotes with one (that doesn't, like the current universal remotes, have "hundreds" of buttons) which also could control iTunes. 🙂
Click to expand...

Indeed - the need for two way, fairly extensive (XML-based) communication is the major shortcoming of this scheme. Bluetooth is just too expensive for the job.

A very simple alternative would be to standardize infrared remote control protocols and device triggers, have both transmit and receive diodes in both unit and remote, and allow them to synchronize their activity when put in close proximity. Putting a two-line display on the remote for feedback and state information would be nice too. But frankly, I want the tactile feedback of remotes. You would have to be looking at the touchscreen to be using the one apple describes.

So the idea would be - you get a new TV. You have a universal remote with color-coded device buttons. You put the remote near the TV and press program-red. The TV and remote talk and establish the codes which will operate the TV, with feedback on the remote LCD. All TV functions are fully accessible via the remote, using the standardized key layout of the remote. Additionally, extra buttons on the remote are programmable for specific functions like toggling the SAP channel. Then you take your remote and do program-blue with the VCR. The same happens, but the protocols negotiated are such that they do not interfere with the signals to the TV. Additionally, the remote is smart enough to make it so behaviors don't conflict - volume controls tv only, ff and rew are automatically routed to the vcr and so forth.

Better yet, make everything digital and interoperate out of the box, so your Reciever controls TV, Cable, DVD, Tivo and smoothly integrates their function.
 
jholzner said:
Apple didn't invent bonjour. It is an opensource project that they are using. It's real name is zeorconf. Apple just stuck a flashier name to it.

http://zeroconf.sourceforge.net/zeroconf-lca2003/t1.html
Click to expand...
You may want to take a closer look at that project, particularly about how it was pulled for a while because it infringed on old Apple patents (that have since expired), and who the authors of the standard they implemented are.
 
Make a remote that integrates perfectly with AirTunes (sans usb dongle) and all my electronics, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
 
Apple should partner up with more companies so they can create solutions like this. Apple is hot right now and I am sure other companies would like to cash in on that success. Only problem I see is other companies would allow the device to be compatible with a few more codecs than just DRM files. That might not fit into Apples vision. But it would make the remote a must have item.

I think they should make a computer that would only connect to a TV would replace and function the same as a cd/dvd player, stereo, surround sound receiver, vcr and tivo with the option to play games as well. It would just be a Mac with a tweaked OS. Sort of like an xbox but for everything else.
 
I remembered this one guy on slashdot was saying something like this about two months ago. He really seemed to know something in that "AsSeenOnTV" kind of way. Seriously, he was saying something exactly like this. I think it is was on the thread about that tablet mac patent.
 
DariusRucker said:
I remembered this one guy on slashdot was saying something like this about two months ago. He really seemed to know something in that "AsSeenOnTV" kind of way. Seriously, he was saying something exactly like this. I think it is was on the thread about that tablet mac patent.
Click to expand...

Have any links for us, either to slashdot or the other thread?
 
rdowns said:
500 bucks for a remote - LOL. Even Apple couldn't get away with that crap.
Click to expand...


If you could surf the web, check email, control iTunes, change channels on your TV, and control DVD, amp, etc! I would pay as much as $600. So speak for yourself not the masses. I know at least 5 people that would go for that right now. I have a Sony universal remote which is touch-screen that I payed $200 for, it works great and wish it would do more!
 
a long time ago apple was mentioned as working with bose; it was mentioned on one of the apple rumor sites. can't remember which.

whether this was in relation to ipod speaker sets or whatever, they do have remotes that work through walls, floors and ceilings. so controlling your computer from your lounge would be entirely possible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back