Kirk McElhearn, writing for Kirkville:
If you have a new Apple TV, you may have already discovered that the new remote is not the ideal device for navigating lists in the Apple TV’s interface. If, for example, you have a long list of movies, and want to view one near the bottom of the list, you need to swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, until you get to where you want.
However, you can still use the old Apple TV remote – the one to the left – with the new device. You can navigate much more easily by pressing the up and down buttons; and you can press and hold to move up or down a list quickly. And entering passwords, something that is hellish on the new Apple TV – is even easier with the old remote; you can press and hold the left and right buttons to move through the letter list.
Brilliant!
First we all ditch the old remote, now this?
I can understand claiming the old remote better for long lists, sure, but text entry? Are they using the right remote?
yeah i dont get it either. new remote has fast-swipe, which jets me across a horizontal list very quickly.
I’m pretty sure I was able to get to the end of long lists or text blocks by just tapping on the bottom of the touchpad. Maybe that didn’t work in all instances and needs to be fixed? I know the right and left edge tapping works great — maybe too great in the case of movie skip ahead and back when you pick up the remote. 🙂
I just got the AppleTV in yesterday and set it up late last night, so I’ll check into my statement about tapping the bottom and top edges more tonight.
You can just swipe to get to the bottom of the list. Also for small movements you can actually just tap on the edge of the trackpad and use it just like the old remote. Give it a try.
So the new $79 remote can be upgraded by replacing it with a 5 year old $19 remote. What a great commentary on Apple’s total lack of design editorial over the past few years.
They should have shipped the new Apple TV with the original remote and at the original $99 price and made the game controllers optional extras. That way, their existing audience could just continue to buy new Apple TV devices without knowing or caring about games, and a game-playing audience could buy the same Apple TV and pick up 1 or 2 game controllers. And they should have made the game controllers sexy and useful instead of horrible monstrosities that wouldn’t pass muster at Sony.
Can’t say I am surprised though, when my 2010 iPad is better in every way except miniaturization than my 2015 iPad. So some of Apple’s engineers have added value over the past 5 years, but none of their designers have added any value for me, and in fact, they wasted a ton of my time by forcing me to adjust to new user interface conventions that didn’t actual give me any return on investment at all. It is like Apple are taunting Microsoft and Google to come take their customers.