waffle

iLounge speculates that Apple might introduce a Universal Remote. I’m with them. I hope they’re right.

The Stockholm area just shut down its analogue TV net. I have a not-entirely-new TV (it’s 4:3 and thus ancient, and it’s not even an LCD TV) and a comparatively small and easy-to-use DVB-T decoder. The decoder remote (credit card-sized) has 29 buttons. The TV remote (monolith-sized) has 63 buttons. Sixty. Fucking. Three.

The big, big, big problem with most of the remotes – especially universal remotes, but any remote – the big problem is that they think you’ve got to have everything there. They think you need more or less 29+63 buttons. That’s not true. Here’s what I want: Power on. Volume up/down. Mute. Channel up/down. That’s 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 6 buttons. Teachable, of course – flip the record switch, fire any old IR remote button press up its rump, hit a button, flip the record switch again.

Not enough? Add some more: Keypad. Info button. Switch source. That’s 6 + 10 + 1 + 1 = 18 buttons. It’s no Apple Remote, but it’s positively anemic compared to what’s out there. Even if you further add a Guide button, directional buttons and OK (needed to navigate said Guide) and Teletext, it’s ‘just’ 25 buttons for both devices with some clever programming – and by clever programming I really just mean sending out different signals. Of the two remotes I use, no buttons overlap. Volume and power on on the TV remote, the rest (‘channelly stuff’) on the decoder remote.

What would I like most of all? A 3-inch touchscreen remote. I know, I know. Even Philips charge through the nose for a version bundled with crapware. (A friend got one, five years ago. He’s up to his fourth attempt to configure it. Configure it!) Still, though… If only…