Michal Marek Apple has been tightening its grip on regular TV and other remote controls for a long time. They are said to be too complicated and inconvenient to control. With the expected arrival of the new generation of Apple TV, a new controller is being prepared in Cupertino after almost six years. It should be thinner and have a touchpad.
American newspaper The New York Times he revealed information about the upcoming driver for the promised anonymity directly from one of the dedicated Cupertino employees. The touchpad on the controller will reportedly be used to conveniently scroll through the content and will be supplemented by two physical buttons. An Apple employee also revealed that the controller will be slimmed down to roughly the level of the controller for Amazon's Echo wireless speaker. As expected, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment on the claims.
The current Apple TV controller is one of the symbols of Apple's design philosophy and is a frequently used training aid for the company's employees. In one of the courses of the so-called Apple University, lecturers compared the Apple TV controller with the Google TV controller. It has a total of 78 buttons.
Apple's controller, on the other hand, is just a thin piece of metal that currently has three buttons. So this is an article that is used as a classic example of how, at Apple, an idea comes first and then it is discussed at length until something is created that is simple to use and easy to understand.
The touchpad could certainly be an interesting control element that would not disturb the simple philosophy or design of the controller in any way. In addition, if a new Apple TV with expanded functionality or even its own application store is indeed presented at June's WWDC, the possibility of conveniently scrolling through content will certainly not be thrown away. In addition, Apple would not have to develop any new technology expensively. The touchpad has been used by Apple's wireless mouse called the Apple Magic Mouse and its Magic Trackpad for a long time.
So let's wait and see what Apple will do at the developer conference, which will start on June 8, pull out. This year's WWDC is subtitled "The Epicenter of Change" and all we know for sure is that new versions of both OS X and iOS will be introduced. However, we are talking about the new generation of Apple TV, which Apple is certainly counting on, but hasn't updated in three years. The last major innovation should be new music service.
It looks interesting, I hope, we will not miss Taptic festback, force touch and touch ID for confirming purchases.
So the idea seems reasonable, to build an App Store on the iOS platform with applications for Apple TV similar to those for the Watch.
Now if only the AppleTV had an additional powerful processor and enough internal memory, because these are the hw parameters on which Apple significantly saves money compared to the competition. It is precisely because of this that it can have higher margins.
The latest generation of Apple TV is practically only worse in some respects and better than the Google Chromecast in some respects.
In addition, Google TV was usually combined with some kind of cable set-top box (so it solved, for example, fast TV recording, switching inputs between other devices, ...) and in addition to (by the number of keys) a full-fledged keyboard, it also contained buttons that you can find on any other remote control . It's easy to say that the Apple TV has a simple controller, but the Apple TV doesn't do much functionally, so what's the point of those extra buttons, right? Also, the on-screen keyboard is a pain in the ass, and if you don't use the on-screen keyboard with the Apple TV, you will practically only degrade it to the inferior Chromecast.
And Chromecast has no controller.
Well, the ATV controller is sexy, but unusable, I basically use an iPhone instead of a controller – a separate controller for anything is out of the question these days!