The difference between Apple and everyone else

I don't have an AppleTV, but I do have a Mac Mini that runs iTunes and FrontRow. It has a small remote that is excellent for controlling the volume, fast forwarding, rewinding, and so on.

If I want a fuller interface, I can use Apple's remote application on my iPad or iPhone or iPod Touch. I don't care for the idea of trying to make one remote provide both the minimal and the maximal interface at the same time.

Disclosure: I do not hack my Unix filesytem for the sheer joy of nerding out. My opinions about usability probably do not map to anyone who reads HN regularly.

Actually the article is missing a larger point. Most users probably don't want to be searching on their TV. Maybe a larger cognitive disconnect of Google's Device is that their answer to the problem isn't the right one. At some point Google really needed to try to figure out whether search was the feature that people really needed. I'd say content discovery is still a huge gaping hole as more IP Delivered video gets pushed to the main TV screen in your house. I don't think that text search is how people are going to find it. But hey when your main tool is a hammer every problem starts looking like nails right?

Apple's focus is on delivering video. period. They don't need the complexity of an GoogleTV because they're delivering the main thing that people want on their TV. They end up with a $100 box which is very usable and probably delivers the key features that people need.

BTW Vizio has a more elegant solution for a keyboard with a clamshell remote

http://gizmodo.com/5443308/every-3d-vizio-comes-with-this-cr...

As these types of epiphanies pop up on the web over time I wish someone would just come out and say it. Apple, as an organization, approaches problems in a way that just about every other company is too chickenshit to try. When Jobs returned and launched the Think Different campaign it wasn't for the masses, it was for Apple.

It's difficult to articulate this properly because most people don't even have a good understanding of what it means to dissent. Being rebellious isn't thinking differently, it is merely fighting the imposition of someone else's will upon your own. Thinking differently is looking at something in the most honest way you possibly can and attempting to refine your vision without allowing undue external influences to distract from the pursuit.

Rarely can you find a single person, much less an organization, that can avoid tunnel vision and approach problems without the taint of past success spoiling new opportunities. It's kind of amazing to watch.

It's not really that astonishing. I've been sitting in product design meetings for over a decade for applications, and anything designed through that process almost inevitably ends up looking like that Sony remote.

When you have five product managers that have a stake in something and they care more about their little product rather than the larger picture, this is what you end up with.

Apple has the singular vision of Steve Jobs/Jony Ive to drive their products. You really need a (well-qualified and competent) dictator when it comes to product design.

The better question is "what will happen to Apple after Jobs and Ive are gone?"

the mac people seem to be saying the solution to this problem is to buy an iphone or ipad. that is a really, really lousy answer. despite the fact that to use one of those devices would be really cool, it means I have to buy a totally separate device for the device I just bought. At least the remote comes with the TV! Even if it sucks its fully functional.

How do you actually search from that remote? Can you?

That visio remote looks pretty cool as far as solving the qwerty interface obstacle.

I don't know why they don't just implement a simple Apple remote with an annoying on screen keyboard but really kickass voice recognition...