Universal Electronics Offers Alternative Apple TV Remote to Cable Companies

[Franklin Klein]

100% disagree, the number of accidental movements using the touch pad is unreal, it moves up and down when you’re trying to move left to right and often over or under shoots when scrolling in any direction, it’s not the great user experience everyone expects from apple, you may not have this problem but that doesn’t mean you can extrapolate and theory that everyone else is just “afraid of change”

Have you tried changing the scroll speed setting?

I understand there are some “downsides” to the design but overall it’s crazy how people act like it’s a big fail when it’s vastly easier to use than a traditional remote. When I go over to my sisters and have to use her Samsung remote it’s when I most appreciate the Apple remote.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

original remote is fine. people complaining are simply afraid of change. touch pad is far better than tapping directional buttons many times.

only thing Apple needs to do is to remove animations that block the remote input. i find it extremely idiotic i have to wait for the slow dumb fade-to-home animation or the multitasking animation to finish before my remote is usable.

Explain how not having a mute button is far better than having one.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

Glow in the dark case helps

Yep, have one in light blue.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

Wow. Because people cannot stand the size, slickness, feel and a touch pad that is too sensitive and too big they are "afraid of change". Honestly, one of the most ridiculous takes I've seen on this site in awhile, and that is saying something.

It makes insecure people feel superior to claim something is wrong with those that disagree with them.

 

[FoxMcCloud]

The touchpad isn't the problem, it's that the remote is too thin making it difficult to hold and use, it's also hard to grab without accidentally touching the touchpad, and it's hard to figure out which way is up in the dark (exacerbating my previous point) since it has a symmetrical shape. I love all the technical parts of it, Lightning-charging, Bluetooth, microphone, touchpad, it's all genious... it just needs to be a little easier to hold.

There's one thing I would add actually. Gyroscopic cursor a la LG Magic Remote. It is SO ridiculously intuitive. LG puts about 100 too many buttons on their remote, but that functionality is absolutely amazing and I hope Apple adopt it for the next remote iteration.

Sometimes I pickup the remote and what I’m watching either pauses or seeks 20 minutes ahead. Which is a nightmare in the tragedy that is the YouTube app.

Sometimes when it’s lost, you’ll slightly move and it pauses or exits or jumps chapters.

I’m sure I sneezed once and it did something.

also the navigation interface is inconsistent in tvos. Most apps you pull down to get playback info menu. Some don’t. Especially AppleTV+ where if you pull down nothing happens, you have to press menu even though you’ve been conditioned for the last few years that menu isn’t menu, it’s back. Grr.

Still love Apple TV though

 

[MauiPa]

Have you been watching a show then decide to pick up the remote to pause it? If you pick up the Apple remote the wrong way, even if careful to not touch the surface, but only the sides/edges, the Apple remote detects your hand and decides to do something that a touch/swipe on the corners of the remote would do. Now it's maddening to get back to your show.

A simple thing like a raised surface around the touch surface, or not making it edge-to-edge would stop something that happens every single time.

Plus, apps like Philo, it's interface is bad.... I'd rather click a button 20 times to fast-forward than swipe 20 times. You actually have to swipe to move forward 10 seconds. So you need to swipe right about 20 times to get through a commercial break.

Nope, never happens to me at all. I love Appletv remote. You know you can just use your tv remote, right

 

[LeadingHeat]

Wow, who knew I would be in such a small minority still loving the Apple TV remote. Don’t know how you guys hate it so much and can’t seem to figure out how it works. The slower you swipe the less it’ll jump. I’d much prefer it than having to repeatedly spam click a physical button if I’m trying to jump quickly to the bottom. With this touchpad I just do a bigger, fast swipe and it jumps to it.

Picking it up? Feel for the glass with your thumb. It’ll have more friction so you know which side it is. Or better yet if you have the 4K remote, feel for the raised menu button. Or do what I do and feel for the volume rocker, which is on the right instead of the single buttons on the left.

To each their own I guess, I for one hope they don’t change the remote design too drastically.

 

[MauiPa]

There’s even a more brilliant way - press the TV button and turn it off.

You understand the difference between muting and pausing, right? Or do you not understand the difference? Like muting during a commercial or muting during a phone call while you want the video to continue with automatically invoked close captions on mute?

Thanks for a snarky fanboy response, though.

I do , but thanks for the condescension. Why would you ever want to not pause when you mute? It’s like you want to play the movie while you mute it to talk to someone? Not sensible, I’d rather stop the whole thing and resume after

 

[MauiPa]

Muting and pausing are not the same thing 🤦‍♂️

Oh but I do want to play the movie and miss what’s going on while I have it muted. You think?

 

[w5jck]

original remote is fine. people complaining are simply afraid of change. touch pad is far better than tapping directional buttons many times.

only thing Apple needs to do is to remove animations that block the remote input. i find it extremely idiotic i have to wait for the slow dumb fade-to-home animation or the multitasking animation to finish before my remote is usable.

I'm glad you cleared up that all of us are wrong in hating that crappage called a remote by Apple, and explained how we should all be just like you. NOT! I see you used the word "idiotic" in your tirade. That word seems rather appropriate here in my comments, but in another context...

 

[w5jck]

Or alternatively, it's what I watch 99% of tv through and I love it?

The TV 4K box itself is very good. I really like mine. However, neither the older silver remote nor the newer remote that comes with the TV 4K are very useful. The new remote simply blows chunks. I cannot even pick that crappage up without it doing something I didn't won't it too! I use a 3rd party programmable Inteset remote instead.

 

[bommai]

This is my Sony x90ch TV’s remote. Very usable. Has microphone. Can easily hold it. The bottom side is rough so it won’t slip out. It is very functional. I don’t like the Apple TV remote!!

 

[MauiPa]

I'm glad you cleared up that all of us are wrong in hating that crappage called a remote by Apple, and explained how we should all be just like you. NOT! I see you used the word "idiotic" in your tirade. That word seems rather appropriate here in my comments, but in another context...

curious, I do not see anywhere in the post where he accused you of being wrong, only stated his opinion. Which sounds OK, that does not make you less of a man if he and others disagree with you and love the appletv remote. That is fine too. Use your TV remote, it works you know

 

[sirozha]

I do , but thanks for the condescension. Why would you ever want to not pause when you mute? It’s like you want to play the movie while you mute it to talk to someone? Not sensible, I’d rather stop the whole thing and resume after

I guess you think that movies are the only thing people watch on TV.

 

[TonyC28]

I don’t hate the Apple TV remote, but I don’t like it. I wish it were a little bigger, easier to grab in the right orientation without looking at it, had a tv power button, and some kind of something that I can’t even think of that would prevent accidental touch pad gestures when picking it up.

 

[coolbreeze]

Fall asleep with the ATV remote in bed? Random channels being changed as you brush the tracking surface, somehow.

Go to pick it up and touch/squeeze anywhere but the proper lower half, on the sides? Random changes, presses, swipes.

Put a "case" on it to help the above problem? Oops, the IR transmitter's effectiveness is reduced.


Look, I appreciate Steve's vision here, but please tell me where I can buy this remote today. I need 7 of them. Tried Harmony, other remote solutions, etc and they all suck in their own special way. I just want physical buttons on a remote control, that's it. If I need surface tracking for some function, I have my phone/iPad. I certainly don't need that feature at all times, every time.

I will pay anything.

 

[zorinlynx]

Why would a company go through the trouble and expense of developing a product only to not sell it directly to end users?

They're artificially limiting their market. This is extra frustrating since this looks like the first third-party Apple TV remote that actually uses Bluetooth, has Siri functionality and isn't a comrpomised design.

WTF!?

 

[icwhatudidthere]

That's actually an entirely different behavior.

Sometimes it is implemented as a short scroll, you are right about that,
but other times it will act as a 'scroll and tap'.

I'm using a local VOD provider whose 'edge tap' is actually switching between channels (like CH+).

This is really getting to the root of the problem for me. It's that Apple doesn't enforce standard control behavior of the touch pad and apps are free to implement it however they want. Examples I just tried:

YouTube app: tap edges to ff/rewind with preview. clicking edges will ff/rw without preview.
Hulu app: click edges to ff/rw and touching the edge gives a clue that it will ff/rw 10 sec.
Peacock app: neither tap nor click edges does anything. Only way to scrub is to use inaccurate swipes.
Apple Music app: tap edges to skip to next song, no scrubbing other than jumping between lyrics.

The behavior in the Hulu app seems to be the most common but having outliers can be hugely frustrating.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Wow. Because people cannot stand the size, slickness, feel and a touch pad that is too sensitive and too big they are "afraid of change". Honestly, one of the most ridiculous takes I've seen on this site in awhile, and that is saying something.

what a stupid comment. people said the same thing about how the iphone’s keyboard, yet here we are.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Have you been watching a show then decide to pick up the remote to pause it? If you pick up the Apple remote the wrong way, even if careful to not touch the surface, but only the sides/edges, the Apple remote detects your hand and decides to do something that a touch/swipe on the corners of the remote would do. Now it's maddening to get back to your show.

A simple thing like a raised surface around the touch surface, or not making it edge-to-edge would stop something that happens every single time.

Plus, apps like Philo, it's interface is bad.... I'd rather click a button 20 times to fast-forward than swipe 20 times. You actually have to swipe to move forward 10 seconds. So you need to swipe right about 20 times to get through a commercial break.

never happened to me, nope.

i rather have touch swipes.

not Apple’s problem that Philo’s interface is bad. that’s a Philo problem.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Explain how not having a mute button is far better than having one.

use volume controls. not that hard.

adding a button adds more complexity and user has to learn more. next you’ll be asking for a subtitle/CC button, a power button, a fast forward button, a rewind button.

 

[trip1ex]

I LIke it. But I do understand the need for this cable remote so cable operators can sell the ATV to customers. They have to give customers something that is familiar.

But that cable remote is not something I would like better than the ATV remote. It's got tiny buttons and a stiff small looking dpad.

The beauty of the ATV remote are the few buttons that are bigger than most remotes that give you fast access to the essential functionality without having to shift grip and hunt and peck or feel your way to some tiny out of the way button.

The lack of a power button on the ATV remote is genius. SAme with the lack of an input button. And I don't need mute either. IF they really needed mute I would build into the remote as is exists. LIke someone said, shake it. OR long press volume down. Or a fast double click of volume down to mute. Or double click the Sir button. But given I watch mostly commercial free on demand streaming mute isn't something I use. I can pause, hit menu, hit home, hit volume down, and I can even say "mute tv" while holding down the Siri button.

I never even made much use of mute back in the day. The mute button was always a small out of the way button and given I never needed it much to begin with, I just would use volume down back in the live cable days.

And really the past 15+ years until the beginning of 2020 I had a Tivo system and 99% of my tv watching was recorded shows and I had zero use for mute. I just paused tv. That was before netflix etc.

And the touchpad is something you appreciate after awhile as you gain experience with it. The problem with it is mainly that a lot of apps don't design for it. They just port over their design from a dpad type remote and map the dpad stuff to the touchpad and call it a day.

 

[1961templar]

Is a new  TV due soon?

 

[farewelwilliams]

I'm glad you cleared up that all of us are wrong in hating that crappage called a remote by Apple, and explained how we should all be just like you. NOT! I see you used the word "idiotic" in your tirade. That word seems rather appropriate here in my comments, but in another context...

yeah, the context of “idiotic” is talking about your comment.

what a stupid thing to say.

 

[davidg4781]

I love most Apple products as they bring me joy in my life. The AppleTV 4K remote is horrendous. Top 10 worst designs from Apple.

What are the other 9?