The difference between Apple and everyone else

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, <i>it was for Apple</i>.<p>It's difficult to articulate this properly because most people don't even have a good understanding of what it means to <i>dissent</i>. 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.<p>Rarely can you find a <i>single</i> 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.

I have to wonder how many people proclaiming that "Apple just gets it" have actually used the remote in question rather than looking at its (admittedly gorgeous) picture. We have one of the previous generation Apple TV's with a very similar remote. It currently sits unplugged next to the television on top of an upturned yogurt container.<p>It's on the yogurt container because its lack of vents causes it to overheat if sitting on a smooth surface. It's unplugged because there's no clear power button on its very stylish remote. I happen to know that if you hold down one of the keys long enough it will turn (mostly) off, but I don't think this knowledge is shared by others in the house. It needs to be turned off because of the whine of the harddrive and the aforementioned overheating problem.<p>Using the remote to enter search terms for Youtube is possible, but is a dreaded chore. Generally one says "Here, let me show you something" and then has to call the other party back from another room when done with the laborious process. This is not attempted as much as when the device was new. A keyboard as a remote may look silly, but would at least make simple things like this possible.<p>Overall, it's very cute and warm little boat anchor. We'll probably eventually manage to get Boxee installed on it, but the lack of a reasonable means of entering text will really limit its utility. So while I agree that Apple "really gets it", at least in this case I'd apply this solely to their marketing rather than their usability.

<i>Engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff.</i><p>-- Cory Doctorow <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow#Eastern_Standard_Tribe" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow#Eastern_Standard_...</a><p>Apple takes the time to figure out how normal people do stuff.<p>I'm not sure what Microsoft does, but I'm picturing what some a focus group determines followed by the interpretation by committee (with the necessary compromises) followed by what some engineer implemented, all constrained by years of legacy code.<p>I've been using Win7 at work (I'm linux-only at home) and expected it to be a smooth experience. After all, everybody says linux isn't ready for the desktop yet. I am surprised at how often Win7 guesses my intent <i>wrong</i> or does stupid annoying things like jumping the list under the mouse when I click on an entry.

So if you want to search for something on TV, which GoogleTV is supposed to enable you to do, how would you do that using Apple's three-button remote? I have an idea about a prayer and Steve Jobs, but wouldn't elaborate on it.<p>I think the blog post doesn't have a point at all, since it compares apples to pears.

The Sony remote looks like a label maker. I'm surprised they didn't style it a bit better.

What's really amazing is that people seem to believe that Google designed products that were actually manufactured and designed by Sony and Logitech.

I had a really good conversation yesterday at the Dev Lunch in Toronto about so-called Smart TVs. Here's a quick summary:<p>* TVs are about media consumption, not about interaction in the PC-sense of the word.<p>* When one wants extra content or information regarding the media they are consuming, they tend to use a secondary device (e.g. iPad, notebook)<p>* Most devs in the room merely wanted a device that would allow them to better manage and consume the media they wanted<p>* It's not clear what sort of apps (besides the aforementioned management tool) would be beneficial to write for a Smart TV platform. This is likely a function of not groking what a future with a Smart TV might be like.<p>* Over and over again, it was noted that the TV is a social device. You watch it with friends, be it in a bar, or a home. It's not clear that interacting with a Smart TV <i>could</i> be a social activity.<p>I'm interested to see what happens in this sphere, but I frankly can't shake the feeling that it's a dead end. Mostly dumb boxes that enable consumption, and management of media are probably the most likely thing to succeed, a la TiVo.

It seems obvious, but the number of people (and companies) who don't get this at all is astonishing.

The article misses the point - Apple is aiming for a particular niche market, and it achieves that very successfully. Its niche market will pay through the roof for devices which look nice and make it easy to do the most common things but very hard or difficult to do something outside a particular square.<p>However, this is only a small (albeit high paying) niche, and to suggest that other companies are making poor business decisions because they aren't targeting the same niche that Apple does is simply wrong. I'm sure entering a URL, for example, on the Sony-Google remote would be far easier and more obvious than on the Apple one - and so I'm sure the majority of consumers would prefer that one over the Apple one.<p>In summary, all the designs on the page are appropriate for a market segment the brands they are being marketed under target.

I have already implemented The Right Solution for my MythTV.<p>Two remotes.<p>One is a TiVo remote control. Fits nicely in my hand, has the important buttons laid out nicely. Good for watching and selecting and OK for most other tasks.<p>The other is a remote keyboard with built-in mouse, similar to the Logitech board. I pull it out when I want to search for something or manipulate the system in a more complex way (like firing up Firefox to play a Flash game). The rest of the time, it's propped next to the sofa.<p>There's no reason not to ship a simple remote and a complex one, and let people decide what they need when they need it.

As a nitpick, the Apple Remote has seven buttons: Four direction buttons, center button, Menu button, and play/pause.<p>This does not really detract from the central point of the argument, but then I believe the argument is flawed since the remotes are made for almost entirely different things. You cannot run searches using the Apple Remote, for example. Whether the solution picked by Sony and Logitech is the best solution remains to be seen (although I find it doubtful at best), but the article, IMO, makes a bad point.

Did they really need to put CAPS LOCK on a remote?

I'm really disappointed in the next generation of remotes. What I really want to know is why, when we have touchscreen phones and devices like the iPad, our remotes are still hunks of plastic with dozens of tiny rubber buttons?<p>Forget remotes, I want the whole UI for my TV to be on a dedicated touchscreen device. I want to read about what's on next, preview what's on other channels and schedule recordings without disrupting what's on the display screen.<p>The rest of the time, show me two big volume buttons.

Does anyone else think the recent release (and positive reviews) of Kinect might indicate that the Sony and Logitech solutions will quite soon be anachronisms? People seem to say the Kinect's voice recognition is still a bit dodgy, but for the solutions the monstrous remotes are meant to solve, I don't see why voice input wouldn't generally work? If I want to find the next showing of It's Always Sunny in Philadelpha, it's a heck of a lot easier to just <i>say</i> it than type it out, and since it's search-based, the voice recognition doesn't have to be perfect anyway.

The best remote for the TV products are touch screen phone apps with shifting UIs: a four-d pad when it needs to be, a keyboard when it needs to be. (A quick reference IMDB device when it needs to be).

Boxee hits a sweet spot on the remote IMO

It's the balance between engineering and design. Apple naturally knows how to find that center, most others seem to skew too far in either direction.

I think Netflix solves this problem nicely. You use a computer to add things to a queue and then a remote to browse through the queue.

&#62;<i>"I can see the Apple designers starting from scratch, sitting down on their couches in their living rooms and imagining what they would want to use"</i><p>The result of imagining rather than testing is a tiny remote that easily falls between the cushions of said couch or gets buried under a magazine on the end table.

Google TV is more like a computer. Apple TV is more like on-demand TV/video programming.<p>I'm not saying one is better than the other (ok, well, the computer is better ;) ) but it should be apparent why the inputs are so different.

Apple is just a good IT department for everyone else.<p>Every good IT department attempts to distill computer usage into a few core functions that are reliable and easy to use.

Okay, but how do you _write_ with the Apple remote?<p>The article doesn't compare like-for-like. It's not a fair comparison.

Doesn't seem to amount to a hill of beans when it comes to sales figures though, does it?

Apple TV is meant to be a media browsing and consumption device, whereas Google TV includes Chrome(with Flash).<p>You can use an Android phone to control Google TV anyway.<p>I would love to see Apple solving the problem with typing using a remote(especially things like URLs) without using resorting to an iPhone or iPod Touch.

BUT APPLE TV WON"T PLAY OGG VORBIS<p>:-P