The AppleTV Remote Sucks
Dec 9 It’s so bad a Swiss company made a much saner substitute that sells for ~$20.
Nov 16 Looks like you can use the old remote with the new AppleTV.
I’m annoyed every time I have to use the infernal thing.
- It tries (poorly) to be something other than a damn TV remote1.
- There’s no way to tell which end is up.
- There’s no accidental tap detection when you pick it up.
- It’s way too small.
- It’s way too slippery.
- I use Siri to skip forward and backward because the edge clicks are unmemorable and dysfunctional.
I use the iPhone app when I can and, while I can’t stand the terribly implemented inertial scroll, still find it better than the hardware.
Inertial scrolling does in fact exist on the Siri remote, but the effect is muted. The on-screen movement doesn’t accurately reflect your swiping — scrolling is staggered and it often stops abruptly, when you don’t intend to stop. This makes aspects of navigation, like manual search or entering your email address or password, extremely cumbersome.
– Dave Smith, “My biggest problem with the new Apple TV remote”
See also: Steve Brykman of ArsTechnica’s thoughts on “the nightmare horrorshow” that’s the remote.
“You’re basically getting a giant iPad game that you have to play with a tiny remote”↩︎