The Apple Remote Control
Via TUAW, an intriguing theory from Forbes’s Bridget Brennan:
My mother is a smart woman who runs her own business. She values her time and has no desire to spend it configuring devices that should be elegant and easy to use, given their high cost. I couldn’t help but think: Why does the consumer electronics industry make things harder the more advanced technology gets? And then my thoughts turned to fantasy: Why doesn’t Apple make remote controls?
You ask: Why Apple? Because if any company could improve one of the world’s most user-unfriendly electronic devices, it would be Apple. And then there’s this: Apple just may be the world’s most discreetly feminine brand.
Of course Apple does make a remote control it just only controls devices that Apple makes so you can’t use it to run your cable box or your stereo. But it definitely exists. Is Apple really a “feminine” brand? It’s certain more interested in design/aesthetic issues than your average computer-maker.
40 Responses to “The Apple Remote Control”
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July 31st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Good design, of course, is the kind of thing that women and homosexuals and other un-manly types respond to. Real, manly men only like hard-to-figure-out devices with lots of buttons.
Speaking as someone who actually attended design school, Brennan’s piece is just infuriatingly stupid and sexist.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I guess I’m the only one left alive who thinks the jog wheel is an utter piece of crap and really hard to use. I should probably take that as indication that I’m wrong, but instead I’ll consider it a further indication of my independent thinking… not to be confused with contrarianism, mind you!
July 31st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Yeah, i don’t see this as a particularly feminine desire. I’m a dude, I used to sell computer peripherals for a living, and I’m constantly at sea when trying to configure stuff because it’s so complex and poorly explained. It’s just a general failure, not a gender-related one.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
That is, until you buy an Apple TV and iPod companion stereo music players. Yeah, I know both of these categories are not adequately served by Apple yet, but I believe Apple is growing gradually more ambitious and will eventually support a device range somewhat close to Sony. Ofcourse with Jobs’ obsession with perfection it might take a few decades for these devices/appliances to actually appear in the market.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I disagree with the feminine thing (is it sexist to call something good “feminine” though?); in fact the male Mac enthusiasts I know seem to be good evidence that the kinds of things Apple is good at appeal to many men.
What the heck does “discreetly” feminine mean, though? The ubiquitous white earbuds are about the most indiscreet thing in personal electronics.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Why does the consumer electronics industry make things harder the more advanced technology gets?
What is any sentient being doing asking this question?
Why does the human body make it harder to walk upright than lie still in bed? Why does language make it harder to speak in words and sentences than use gutteral noises? Why do cars make it more difficult to drive one effectively than it is to roll a wagon down a hill?
July 31st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
It’s also worth mentioning that if you have an Apple TV, you can turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a pretty sweet interactive remote via the Remote app. I still use my universal remote most of the time (since I already had it in my hand to turn the TV over to the Apple TV from the cable), but it’s nice if you don’t want all the menus to pop up on the screen.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
“It’s also worth mentioning that if you have an Apple TV, you can turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a pretty sweet interactive remote via the Remote app. I still use my universal remote most of the time (since I already had it in my hand to turn the TV over to the Apple TV from the cable), but it’s nice if you don’t want all the menus to pop up on the screen.”
Fuck all that noise.
Mac Mini + Apple Remote + Sofa Control + Some knowledge of AppleScript = the best media player environment available anywhere at any cost.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:27 pm
That’s an understatement. If Apple had choked pre-iMac, by now only Sony would make so much as a haphazard stab at aesthetics.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Is it too much to expect androgyny in electronics?
July 31st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
And, while I’m at it: Apple = feminine, Miata = gay, Z3/Z4 = babe? Who thinks up this crap?
July 31st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I think the point that Apple’s products are friendly and sleek is a fair one, but it’s also an obvious one. Can’t write an article with that as the thesis. Have to jazz it up with something non-intuitive or controversial. I know! Apple’s products are feminine!
Okay, interesting thesis, but the article never quite gets around to explaining how “curvy” and “friendly” means feminine — it just sort of assumes everything that makes it interesting. Maybe unapologetically unapproachable electronics (computer kits… linux… gazillion-button remote controls…) are nerdy, and maybe nerdiness is inherently masculine, but I don’t think that suggests that a lack of nerdiness is feminine.
Whatever. Dumb article.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
@ #2, I say this as a proud iPod/macbook owner… I freaking HATE the wheel. What is wrong with arrow keys, or even a slider? I am constantly either going 50 songs past the one i want, or accidentally deafening myself thanks to that damn wheel.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
“I freaking HATE the wheel. What is wrong with arrow keys, or even a slider? I am constantly either going 50 songs past the one i want, or accidentally deafening myself thanks to that damn wheel.”
Don’t use the damn wheel. It’s for suckers.
Use iTunes w CoverFlow and Sofa Control for left/right arrow key music browsing.
Apple ain’t providing a turnkey solution for large libraries, but if you get a Mini and can deal with AppleScript, they are indeed selling the best solution for large libraries by a huuuuuuge margin.
“Mac Mini + Apple Remote + Sofa Control + Some knowledge of AppleScript = the best media player environment available anywhere at any cost.”
Worth mentioning that you can get HD content off your TiVo onto a setup like this, with two caveats – you need Toast to play the TiVo files on the Mini, and if you want to get premium content like HBO off the TiVo, you need to have FIOS as your TV provider.
Deal with these caveats, and you’ve got mellow gold – unlimited and backupable legitimate content.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Apple’s “thing” isn’t gender. It’s math/physics/engineering/coding’s highest aesthetic…elegance.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Of course, the Mac remote is incredibly simple because it controls almost nothing. As soon as you wanted to control a TV with it, you have to add at least 10 buttons (digits 0-9). It also only works within an entirely Apple environment.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
True, an Apple vibrator would probably do pretty well.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
“Apple’s “thing” isn’t gender. It’s math/physics/engineering/coding’s highest aesthetic…elegance.”
Apple’s “thing” stopped being elegance several years ago.
Now, Apple’s “thing’ is demo-abliity. Luckily for Cupertino, their OS competitors are so fucked up that it doesn’t matter that demo-abliity is higher on their priority list than usability.
If you care about what OS you’re using, Apple now has a bigger monopoly than Redmond ever had.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Female iPhone, MacBook Air, etc.
But today I got my hands on an amazingly elegant non-Mac gadget. It’s the Novatel MiFi — a tiny portable WiFi hub. Really fine so far.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
“Of course, the Mac remote is incredibly simple because it controls almost nothing.”
It controls my 4TB music and video library quite nicely, thank you very much.
It just won’t do this out of the box, since Apple prefers selling you content over letting you manage your own content.
July 31st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Worth noting that the iPhone that Apple charges you $800 for (AT&T lets you pay the balance on the installment plan) costs them $200 to make.
That’s so discreetly feminine that it’s high-class discreetly feminine. I’d say the profit margin is roughly equivalent…
July 31st, 2009 at 6:03 pm
#17: True, an Apple vibrator would probably do pretty well.
You are not the first person to ponder this: The Ibrator.
July 31st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I couldn’t help but think: Why does the consumer electronics industry make things harder the more advanced technology gets?
The more options you want, the more complex your keyboard.
I hate to point this out, folks, but a set-up with fewer buttons is often more difficult to use if you need functionality. I work in a research lab, and quite often programmable equipment has only four or five buttons, so you have to learn different orders and combinations if you want to program anything. This makes things much more difficult than if it had 20 or 25 buttons each with one clear function. And don’t get me started on electronic pH meters…)
For that matter, I love Mac, but Mighty Mouse sucks. I need a mouse with distinct left and right buttons. With mighty mouse, half the time when you try to right-click, the mouse thinks you left-clicked.
July 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
“I hate to point this out, folks, but a set-up with fewer buttons is often more difficult to use if you need functionality.”
Not with robust menu-ing…
July 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I’m kinda tired of this whole “apple makes things that are easy to use” meme. It only applies to people who aren’t willing to do anything at all to learn how to use a computer.
It’s like riding around on a bike with training wheels your whole life and telling people it’s a superior design to a standard bike.
Learn some balance.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Steve, that’s such a snotty engineer thing to say and it’s crippled the computer/electronics industry for years. Most consumers don’t want to become computer experts in order to master a piece of consumer electronics. They want to take it out of the box and be able to make it work in an intuitive fashion. Expecting consumers to train themselves in the ins and outs of a system is how you get debacles like the BMW iDrive.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Just to fully immerse myself in the stereotypes, are architects considered feminine? I word associate architects with design and beauty, sure, but also with scale, utility and order. Architects and Apple engineers don’t merely strive to make beautiful products, they strive to make beautiful systems–not just hardware and user interfaces, but even the developer APIs are much more appealing than those coming from Microsoft.
Is High Modernism considered feminine now?
July 31st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Logitech Harmony 660, enough said.
Even my wife (Karen) says it is the best, so not enough said.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I’d be fascinated to hear Hector’s opinion on this.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
And then my thoughts turned to fantasy: Why doesn’t Apple make remote controls?
Appropriately, Steve Wozniak actually invented the universal remote, after he left Apple in the 80s. Unfortunately, he’s the dorky engineer to end all dorky engineers, and doesn’t have Jobs’ single-minded, obsessive fixation on making things that the average person doesn’t find aggravating to use. So the remote wound up being hideously complicated, and flopped. (Also, it didn’t help that it didn’t work all that well, either)
July 31st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
@Hank Scorpio
I guess that did come off a little snotty, but I’m no engineer…
An example of what i mean might be creative’s zen sleek media player from ‘05 or ‘06. You can sync it with almost any program, or drag and drop your files onto it, use it as an external hard drive, and it’s “plays for sure”, which means you dont have to convert everything to AAC files.
All of this makes it much easier to use than an Ipod. The problem for most people is that it takes a minute or two to configure, so they get fed up and stick with their ipod, which is not nearly as user friendly.
July 31st, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I largely agree with steve.
The fact that I refuse to let iTunes anywhere near my computer (I can organize my files myself thank you very much) and refuse to use any external device that can’t just be recognized as an external storage device (a la flash drive) is my way of making things simpler.
July 31st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I freaking HATE the wheel.
I like the wheel… when I’m exercising, at least. It’s much easier to clip on my trusty Nano and use the wheel for volume control and skip/repeat than to look at the touchscreen to find the controls. Love my iPhone because it does so many things relatively easily, but the lack of tactile feedback can be a problem for some apps… and AT&T really sucks.
And I don’t want to understand computers; I want to use them. Apple products are pretty much like my Honda– clean, straightforward, intuitive, and low-maintenance, all of which make my life a lot easier. There’s a small price premium and the options are limited, but they both hold their value well and cause me very few problems. Although maybe it’s just me being girly…
August 1st, 2009 at 10:17 am
Reading it uncharitably, “discreetly feminine” means “something you girls don’t have to worry your pretty little heads about.”
More charitably, it means “without spoilers, flames, ground-effects, and a 500-hp engine.”
August 1st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This is one of the more irritating and unsupportable complaints about “modern life”. The devices are not harder to use in the context of the baseline level of complexity and the additional functionality it provides. What would be easier to use would not be capable of controlling all the various functions of cable box/tivo/optical disc player/hd tv that current technology provides.
If a consumer wants to take advantage of the additional capabilities made available by the proliferation of new, more capable devices, it is incumbent upon the consumer to LEARN to use that level of technology. It’s not necessarily advantageous to make these devices “easier to use”, as in many cases that just means providing access to a subset of their features and capabilities, but rather to expect a level of consumer education commensurate with that required to operate the devices effectively.
mikey
August 1st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Actually, you can do all those things with an ipod, and you don’t have to convert your mp3 files to AAC files to play them. The only thing I think you can’t do is drag-and-drop music files into it and just get them to play: you need some kind of syncing application. But other than that, you’re good to go.
You know, here’s the funny thing: if you’re willing to make the effort to learn, you can use the iPod to do interesting, complicated things. The basic functionality is obvious (jog wheel haters, yes, it is just you), and it takes just as much effort to figure out and learned the “advanced” use of these devices as it does to learn the basic use of the other devices.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
My God we are 25 years into this.
In 1985 and after we were told that Real Men used the command prompt, not some faggish mouse to input commands. Well they might use that command prompt to program F-Keys or batch files for the weak but that was it. GUI was for pussies. Which made some odd sort of twisted sense given that mouse use required taking your fingers off the keyboard. Then again decades of typists managed to take their fingers of the keyboard, do a manual return, and then find their right fingers back on the home keys plus it is difficult to touch type F-keys but whatever.
But the PC people jumped the shark when they undertook a full out defence of the aptly named 5 1/2″ soft floppy against the hard shell 3 1/2″ one. This took the Mac/PC wars from amusing to pathological.
Of course the PC world rapidly adopted mice, GUI and 3 1/2″ floppies at which time they elevated to the “manly men doing things with men” level. Still it is amusing that the ol’ ‘real men don’t DO Apples’
Dude that whole Eve and the Apple thing is so over. You truly won’t be tossed out of the Garden just because you were seduced into tasting an Apple.
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:21 am
(1) I don’t believe that $200 manufacturing fee for an instant.
(2) Are you truly, Petey, so damn stupid that you think the primary cost of an item like an iPhone (or a Mac) is the cost of the BOM? By your logic, is Microsoft doing an even more aggressive screwing of America because the cost of a Windows CD is $.20?
Where exactly do you think the cost to design and code the iPhone and Mac HW and SW comes from? If you think the cost is too high given what you get, sure, that’s your opinion. I think you’re wrong, but reasonable people can disagree. But at least that would be a coherent, economically rational argument.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
An example of what i mean might be creative’s zen sleek media player from ‘05 or ‘06. You can sync it with almost any program, or drag and drop your files onto it, use it as an external hard drive, and it’s “plays for sure”, which means you dont have to convert everything to AAC files.
Actually, you can do all those things with an ipod, and you don’t have to convert your mp3 files to AAC files to play them. The only thing I think you can’t do is drag-and-drop music files into it and just get them to play: you need some kind of syncing application. But other than that, you’re good to go.
The truth is in between. It kinda works on many (not most) programs, depending on which programs have gone to the trouble to reverse-engineer support for the ipod which is broken with every new ipod release because Apple only wants you to use iTunes.
You know, here’s the funny thing: if you’re willing to make the effort to learn, you can use the iPod to do interesting, complicated things. The basic functionality is obvious (jog wheel haters, yes, it is just you), and it takes just as much effort to figure out and learned the “advanced” use of these devices as it does to learn the basic use of the other devices.
And this is just ridiculous. Want to use your player as an external hard drive? Want to copy your mp3s to a different computer? Want your mp3 player to work with music software other than iTunes? Any of these tasks will be much easier if you’re using something other than an iPod.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:52 am
“Logitech Harmony 660, enough said.”
I have to agree on the Harmony. Setup’s a doddle, as it uses a constantly updated online database rather than obscure codes. One button turns on my telly, my amp and my PVR, all set to the right channels. Another button does the same for my Xbox, and another for my DVD player. All the secondary controls (eg aspect ratio, recorded shows list) are configurable. The only downside is that it doesn’t have Bluetooth, so you can’t control a Wii or PS3, although there is a (very expensive) adapter for the PS3.