UX rant: The nightmare horrorshow that is the Apple TV remote – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
Disclaimer: This is a rant. It is one man’s cri de cœur. It is not a review. If you want to read the Ars Technica review of the Apple TV, it’s right here.
I’ve been an Apple guy since the beginning. My first laptop was a Powerbook 100 with a built-in plastic trackball. But unlike the vast majority of Apple products, which are marvels of engineering and design, the remote on the fourth and fifth generation Apple TVs still leaves me in shock at what a nightmare horror-show the thing is.
I wanted to love the Apple TV remote. It was sleek and futuristic. Plus, it had an accelerometer and its own little trackpad. Besides which, I didn’t think I’d really need the remote, anyway, since I could simply tell the TV what I wanted to watch. What wasn’t to love? Turns out, pretty much everything.
Thankfully, though, this interaction travesty provides some good insight into what makes or breaks the user experience.
The “all things to all people” problem
The AppleTV remote doubles as a game controller. I didn’t think I’d game much with the Apple TV (though my kid does between Minecraft sessions), but this functionality seemed cool and futuristic, at least. This leads me to point no. 1: tech hardware products shouldn’t try to be all things to all people (though of course, the iPhone manages to do pretty much everything). TV remotes shouldn’t generally be game controllers—and vice versa.
Especially given the quality of the games on offer. As Killian Bell at Cult of Mac writes, “If you’re gaming on a big TV, I feel like you’re missing out if you choose to do it on what is essentially old mobile hardware. You’re basically getting a giant iPad game that you have to play with a tiny remote.”
The “good looks over utility” problem
Nobody would quibble with the claim that the Apple TV remote looks totally cool. But it seems like real-world usage of the thing was merely an afterthought.
For whatever reason, Apple has a history of making remotes that are too small and too thin. Everything Apple makes is flat and tiny, and the Apple TV remote is no exception. But the lesson here is: just because you can make something tiny doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
Full disclosure—I’m a short man with Trump-sized hands. And let me tell you, size does matter when it comes to TV remotes. A TV remote only does one thing: be held, stationary, in one hand. A human hand, not a raccoon hand. When you hold a remote control in your hand, you want to know you’re holding a remote control in your hand. So, it should be shaped like something that would fit in a hand!
Now, come on. You Apple guys know what shape that is. You make computer mice, for crying out loud. A remote control should have depth and roundness. Or how about this: just make it the same shape as the iPhone. Nobody’s complaining about the shape of the iPhones.
But…
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/01/ux-rant-the-nightmare-horrorshow-that-is-the-apple-tv-remote/
