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The Engineer Behind Microsoft's TV Strategy
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "A high-energy engineer named Joe Belfiore, age 37, has led Microsoft's Media Center team for four years. The effort has gained momentum in the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports, bolstering Microsoft's defense against a challenge from Apple's Front Row for control of home-entertainment software. 'The Apple threat seems menacing, in part because of recent history: Its iPod was a late entry in an established field of digital music players but soon stole the lion's share of the market,' the WSJ writes. At Microsoft, Front Row is already causing ripples: [Bill] Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.) At stake is more than just another piece of software for home computers. Both companies, and others, are trying to build the foundational technology for all home digital entertainment.'"
Relying on Microsoft to build the foundation for all home digital entertainment is like relying on Ford to build the foundation for quality automobiles. (Psst. Hey geniuses. The Japanese already beat you to it.)
If neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Belfiore can figure out how Front Row could have TV and digital video recorder functions without adding buttons to Apple's remote, Microsoft is in sorry shape.
Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.)
Personally, I suspect the Apple remote control would still have six buttons even with TV and DVR. But I imagine Gates still bought that explanation.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Yeah, them dudes never realized that Apple's one-button mousey was superior, and now they are repeating the mistake yet again. Of course, the Lunix community will begin a new era of six button jokes as of this year.
MicroSoft are doing a massive PR job this year?
All was quiet for a while and now it seems like a BS tsunami.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
I think the real battle here is between the xbox and the mac mini. The Windows Media center PC is nothing more than an expensive distraction. Microsoft's real wedge into the home media center space is the xbox. We saw this towards the end of the XBOX 1's lifetime, but it's all the more apparent with the XBOX 360's capabilities. Apple, of course, realizes this, and has positioned the mac mini and its iTunes offerings (and now Front Row) accordingly.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
As fun, and seemingly simple, as it is to bash M$ for being a complete failure at taking over the living room, they are taking the tried-and-true approach to establishing dominance: baby steps. Put the Xbox in the living room, and after two or three iterations of that it's pretty commonplace to see Microsoft sitting under your tv. And so on.
The line from Pirates of Silicon Valley where Bill says (paraphrasing) "You have to make people need you" is perfectly descriptive of Microsoft's philosophy. You create a dependency over time... something that seems fringe or even silly in 1995 but in 2005 everyone can't live without it. It's a long process, but it works. You might not like it, either. But it makes money. It's a sound business practice.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
A successful PVR need not be more than a Hauppauge PVR-150, a Creative DXR3, a Soekris VPN-1401, a large hard drive, and an OS.
People have come to expect even the smallest innovation to become an endless renenue souce.
Case in point; Intel will flog Viiv for most of 2006. AMD won't have a chance to compete, Intel's marketing poop pump is just too big.
I want my TV via FTP. wget, gunzip, and xine
And even if it did have tv recording functions, my MythTV setup for instance uses about 9, maybe 10 buttons plus lets say 12 for the number pad. 22 total
Tivo Series 1 has 33 if you count the four way hat as four.
For me it's not so much how many buttons, but whether they layout is useful.
*My* living room media box is a Linux machine with a 104-key keyboard attached. And I'll bet it's a hell of a lot more capable than *either* of the above companies' offerings.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Apple's 6-button approach is effective, but it DOES miss out on the numeric buttons you see in most TV remotes, so that might pose a bit of problem when Front Row has TV function added for those who channel surf by entering channel numbers. That's about the only argument I can see making sense about the but-it-doesn't-do-TV-or-DVR excuse.
Still, the 6-button approach is better in general over 39-button one IF the buttons are assigned in a clever way. It's obvious that most of those 39 buttons only get pressed once in a while or never get used at all.
Serving time in Aristotelean prison for violating laws of physics
Exactly--and more importantly, whether the common functions (volume, channel, play/pause) are sensible and can be discerned by feel. Nothing worse than having to look away from the display down at the remote in your hand to twiddle the volume, something I tend to do almost constantly.
My zd8000 MCE laptop remote control is about as bad as it gets, so it's just collecting dust.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I thought Apple's remote control would have only ONE button.
Oh well, what the hell...
"Mr. Gates, Apple didn't release their remote until we had already gone to manufacturing."
The XBox wasn't a baby step. It was jumping in feetfirst into the deep end, losing billions and costing billions.
The Mac mini is a baby step; cost effective, profitable, yet tentative. The iPod with video is a baby step; heck, even the original iPod was a baby step.
Apple has undertaken several baby steps to get themselves into the living room:
iPod
Mac mini
iMac with Front Row
Airport Express
iTunes Music Store
iTunes Video Store
Each one works on the experiences of the others and feeds off the successes of each other. Apple watches how Creative (mis)handles MP3 players and comes out with the iPod, watches how Sony and Creative and Real create jukeboxes and creates a correspondingly better one itself, watches how poor music stores are written and creates a nice one, etc.
Microsoft, in comparison hasn't taken any baby steps. It debuts the Media Center PC without any segue devices into the home, then years later introduces the XBox sans media center functionality, then introduce the XBox 360, again sans Media Center functionality.
If Microsoft were doing baby steps, why not release the XBox with build in Media Center functionality? It had the harddrive already, the DVD drive, the CPU! Why not use the XBox to refine the media center functionality, instead of a gaming PC? Why not introduce the XBox mini, who's sole purpose is to lower the price point for the XBox to $99, act as a DVR, and a digital hub? Of course they can't do it because Intel sees no reason to, but that is why you parter with AMD! Create a purpose built CPU, integrate the GPU and other hardware, for a system on a chip so that they can release an entire console with only three components and four devices!
Instead they end of life the XBox the same day the XBox 360 is released; unlike how Sony has successfully kept the PSOne and PS2 alive these past years, and likely will continue to support PS2 for years after the PS3 is out.
GPL Deconstructed
The mini doesn't come with Front Row, only iMac's do.
Until next week that's true, but one of the main predictions for MacWorld is a Mac Mini with a TV Tuner and Front Row software.
It's amazing to me how the iPod came into its market, took over and completely dominates. Electronics manufacturers are building entire product lines from low-end to very high-end accessories, specifically to capitalize on the iPod's success. Most major high-end distributed audio systems now support directly connecting to the iPod to allow it as a source for whole-house audio.
The Mac Mini has been used as a cheap but solid music server by many custom electronics installers. Apple is not only winning with general consumers, but for very high-end applcations (read: rich people's houses and very nice commercial installations).
It's funny to me that Microsoft has been pitching the Media Center for a few years now, and it's starting to come around for expensive custom installs now, too, but I think it's too much. Too much complexity trying to give people stuff they didn't know they want, and not allowing the real control people need.
At work I see a lot of hype about Windows Media Center, and although the menu animations look smooth and almost fancy, and it would be nice to have full Tivo-like capabilities from my PC, I think it's too bulky, trying to be the great all-purpose PC, and give you Tivo functionality, too. I think Microsoft misunderstands a lot of the higher-end market they're trying to get into, because of their arrogance and assumptions that they can just enter any market they want. At the same time, Win MCE isn't really for alot of middle class people either, because those people mostly just want to check their e-mail and browse the internet.
I won't be surprised at all to see Apple provide an inexpensive Mac Mini-based solution that consumers from low-middle class to the very rich will be excited to own and use. I think Microsoft, even though they've been in the game for a relatively long time already, should be getting ready to have their lunch handed to them. I've never owned a Mac or an iPod, but I think I might be holding my own 6-button remote soon.
Why must there only be buttons on a remote? What about a scroll wheel like on the iPod? The 'superluous' padlock on the iPod is an easy way to squeeze numeric buttons into one scroll wheel...
It's the difference between being forced to use the GUI for nearly every operation, or having keyboard shortcuts available.
The number of buttons on the average remote is absolutely ridiculous. Take the one that controls my set top box, for example. There's a blue button (actually, two blue buttons), 'OK', 'TV', 'Guide', and 'i', that all do the same thing in various situations. Other situations make you hit the red button for favourites - even though there's a 'Favourites' button that doesn't work in that situation, and so on.
The actual on-screen interface it controls is dire too. I don't know about anybody else, but it seems to me that the current generation of TV interfaces were designed and implemented by computer people, where the previous generation was designed and implemented by telecom people. You can tell the difference in professionalism in a heartbeat - ten years ago, the idea of something like a TV crashing would be laughable. Now, when I switch on my set top box, I'm greeted with a video explaining how to reboot it! Seriously!
PS: don't take this as a flame, I' m a computer person as well. But let's face it, our industry is full of cowboys, and it's been that way for so long, we've progressed past the point of "I can't believe those jokers get away with things like that", and we're now at the point of "this is normal, it's pie-in-the-sky nonsense to expect things not to break randomly". How pathetic of us.
From the snippet: Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.
Front Row does NOT have TV or Digital Video recorder functions. Whereas Media Center does.
-everphilski-
Long time, no see, Yourdon! What are you up to these days?
I think PVR functionality in a media box is like making a toaster-radio combo. While it's interesting to see it done, how useful is it really in the long run? Trying to support PVR features is the Media Center's Achilles Heel. I simply cannot believe Microsoft does not have a video store of its own by now, also selling TV shows. When ITMS started to take off that was absolutely the right time to trump Apple and get ahead of them. The fact that Microsoft has done so little in that space shows they simply do not have vision any longer, they are just chasing after shiny objects.
Broadcast is a stupid model for delivery in a world where you can just buy what you want, when you want. Even if you want to really "broadcast" something because you want people to see it live, multicast is a nice replacement.
If I had a Mac MINI equivalent box that had digital audio out and supported 1080p and a DVD/Blu-Ray player, I would just drop my cable subscription altogether as we are rapidly approaching critical mass of TV content online. If I can just buy any show I think looks interesting, I have no use whatsoever for cable.
I think a TV remote with six buttons, plus a microphone for speech searching would be just about perfect for me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
N/S. I'd fire the idiot who told me that I needed 39 buttons on a remote. This is probably the same Einstein that came up with cell phones that have color screens, take pictures, have Bluetooth, play games, have downloadable ringtones, Internet surfing, text messaging, and still don't work any better as a telephone than they did 10 years ago. Heck, I can't even find an actual "ring" tone in many of these modern phones.
And five of them are redundant.
FG
psst, watch Steve next Tuesday morning
If Apple introduces in a click-wheel (a la iPod), along with a good on-screen UI, I think they can get away with 6 buttons (plus or minus 2).
You see, it's a matter of continuous UI (knobs) vs. discrete UI (buttons). Sometimes continuous UIs are *just* better for certain things. Most of us are used to discrete UI for TVs and such -- but that doesn't mean a continuous UI is unworkable. It just needs to be designed properly, and the best company to design such a UI is probably Apple.
I'll tell you where a discrete UI doesn't work. I have a Sony cassette player in one of my cars that has two buttons for volume control (+ and -). To me, that's a really stupid UI. To change the volume, I have to glance at the player, feel for the buttons, and press the relevant button x number of times to get the volume I want. All this while I'm driving.
A volume knob would have been so much more effortless. I can just turn to get the volume I want quickly, and easily fine-tune it too.
As someone who uses computers semi-seriously, and who knows many people who use computers seriously, I wonder at what Microsoft is doing spending so much focus on the exact design of a sophisticated home entertainment center.
While Microsoft's good choices at picking and promoting a standardized user interface are certainly not to be overlooked, I wonder if it means that they are taking the actual guts of the system less seriously than they should.
After Linux first showed signs of becoming popular, Microsoft quickly upgraded Windows NT into a passably professional server product (Windows XP). But if Bill Gates' big speech to the CES was about a home entertainment computer, I wonder if the company is going to actually think about making their server product more secure at all.
To me, this is like someone going in to buy a utility truck for work...and having the salesman spend all of his time explaining how the car stereo system works.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
The only buttons you really need are as follows:
[UP] [UP] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [LEFT] [RIGHT] [B] [A] [START]
Pair the 30 lives with a little context-sensitive programming, and you have your remote.
DATABASE WOW WOW
[Bill] Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.)
I see it didn't occur to either one that the Apple remote has fewer buttons becuase the interface is simply not as complicated as theirs. Another company falling for the dillusion that "more buttons = better".
Typical Microsoft. I wonder when they'll realize that Windows XP is not appliance-ready? AFAIK, Media Center is just XP Pro with an extra app (the main Media Center app) installed. I've personally worked with XP Embedded (a componentized version of XP Professional) and it's a total BITCH. You have to hack it to make it "embedded" by setting registry settings, and installing things that click "OK" to modal dialogue boxes and so on. If I can't get XP Embedded working like an embedded appliance, what makes MS think that they can make a standard XP Pro installation work for the average consumer?
Media Center is great for people like me, and also people on Slashdot that don't foam at the mouth every time MS is mentioned, mumbling "Linux! Linux!!". It's also pretty awesome as a bedroom computerTV or for a dorm, but I just can't see it making significant inroads into the living room. Apple may change things somewhat by simplfying things, and so perhaps will the Xbox360, which is where I'm putting my money (not literally of couse).
psst, I guarantee that if FrontRow gets TV functionality it will also get a new remote with more buttons (though most certainly less than 39 - which is about the largest MCE remote available and certainly not the required minimum button set).
I bought a Media Center PC; I found the UI to be mediocre, and after a few months, things gradually stopped working (as it received more and more patches and hotfixes). I eventually installed Linux and it works a lot better now. I also have used a Mac with a TV card, and I also find it a lot nicer than Media Center.
Microsoft can't win this war of the buttons.
Mac could go with only two buttons ("play" and "order a new battery from apple"), but Microsoft is stuck with at least four ("play", "reboot", "reinstall" and "upgrade").
Only Amazon.com could possibly come with a single button operation... but wait, don't they already have a patent on this?
lucm, indeed.
Heck, I can't even find an actual "ring" tone in many of these modern phones.
I discovered that the f****** hid the "ring" option with the volume on mine - took me like a half hour to find it.
I would go along with that if Microsoft occasionally delivered simplicity. But they never do. I think it just shows that intelligence without insight may take you far but doesn't allow you to capture the 'hearts and minds' like apple's products do. Afterall, gates has seen and demoed MCE with the remote for years now - he could have put down a change order at any time if he thought it was a mistake.
I can easily picture an interface for front row that can be add dvr functionality without adding buttons to the remote - and I got a way lower SAT score than gates. MS has always tried to figure out how to get a product to do *more*; apple has always tried to figure out how to get a product to do what it does *better*. The latter speaks to me and my interests more than the former.
The ONLY thing I think that should ever be added to the front row remote would be numeric buttons for channels. I wish all my av gear had as simple a remote/interface.
-matt
was what was impractical.
I watch Cartoon Network on 29, History on 61, Scifi on 62. Switching between 61 and 62 is easy indirectly, but pushing up/down to get from them to Cartoon Network is a chore. Going through a mosaic/menu is even worse, especially when switching DVD chapters. Let me see, Hit next, and the DVD seeks to the next chapter, if the part that starts playing is what you want, you're done, or just hit next again, or hot next, the DVD seeks to the chapter menu, you try to guess from the small snippets an captions whether or not one of these is what you want, and perhaps what you want is actually on another page, then have it seek to what might be what you want, if not, another trip to menu land...
When Apple designed Front Row, they realised that because they have visual cues all over the screen, each of the six buttons can have several functions depending on the context. They just need enough buttons to navigate a menu system, and everything else is done on the screen.
Leave it to Microsoft to cram in the technology. Leave it to Apple to see the possibilities afforded by that technology.
Dan
The minimum reasonable button set for a TV tuner and DVR equipped remote is something around 20.
You've got 10 buttons for a direct access pad, channel up/down, volume up/down, a dpad (5 buttons), and a power button. You probably need a guide button too, that's 21 buttons.
If you decide you don't want to force the user to use the guide, you can get back 10 buttons (to 11), and it's possible to use the dpad for the volume/channel up/down buttons (dpad up/down becomes volume up/down, dpad left/right become channel up/down).
But your UI gets REALLY complicated really quickly - the more you overload the buttons, the more complicated the UI gets. And you start to lose functionality. For instance, if you implement volume up/down using the dpad, then you can't change the volume while changing the channel.
If all you're doing is cloning the iPod UI (which is basically all that FrontRow is), then 6 buttons is probably sufficient. But once you start doing more than that, you're going to to find 6 buttons VERY constraining.
Typo:
If you decide you don't want to force the user to use the guide
Should be:
If you decide you don't want to let the user directly address channels and instead force them to use the guide
psst, Apple would probably just add a scroll wheel to the remote, not buttons. No need for Channel Up/Down or Volume Up/Down. It'll behave like an iPod currently does where all that functionality is packed into one clickwheel, making things feel immediately intuitive and reducing interface clutter.
Microsoft has a lot of reason to worry.
"Sufferin' succotash."
What an insightful post. Now that you mention it, I could see apple totally going this way. Why add features that make the system dependent on your cable subscription and let them have the money? If you were apple with an elegant video download system, there is no need to rely on anyone but you. All the money can come to you through direct television purchases. The same benefits of DVR could be applied to this model: ITMs could find shows you would like by keyword and it could set up auto-purchasing and download of shows you subscribe to. The only thing you miss out on is live tv - but that isn't the primary benefit of a DVR anyway.
And at CES, microsoft is touting URGE. THey are so far behind the 8-ball on this. Music stores are yesterdays news, If apple can run with this, they are going to make an insane amount of money and redefine tv. You sir, should win a cupie doll.
Perhaps you should be reading about.com rather than /. if you can't work your mobile.
Or maybe you should RTFM. I don't *want* my mobile dumbed down for people like you.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.
With a properly-designed UI on the freaking screen, you don't need 39 buttons on the remote.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Are you serious or you are trolling? It's a bloody phone. You are supposed to be able to make phone calls on it. If you want a digital camera, spend a few hundred bucks and get a decent one. If you actually "need" a PDA, get a PDA.
Cell phones are supposed to be made, first and foremost for the average consumer not clueless geeks like you. You seem to completely lack any common sense. Grab a clue and step away from your computer for a while.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Please, do us all a favor and don't ever design a user interface, form, or procedure that anyone will ever use.
The more competitors in a marketplace, the better for everyone, the more innovation, creativity and redefinition of the status quo is possible.
The XBOX 1 DVD Remote has 27 buttons. It doesn't seem like a lot when accessing movies using XBox Media Centre. Sometimes too few buttons causes even more trouble.
If neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Belfiore can figure out how Front Row could have TV and digital video recorder functions without adding buttons to Apple's remote, Microsoft is in sorry shape.
it COULD have tv functions w/out adding buttons, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful. entering channels, for example, is much easier w/ direct access buttons.
i heard that he's going to announce the Front Row Shuffle which has three buttons: "Next Random Channel", "Next Random Volume" and "Fast Forward Some Distance"
No, I'm serious (if a little rude - sorry)
/. that I see people ask for 'simple phones' - maybe because you don't grok how they work nowadays?
I am away from the computer, lots, which is why I want camera, mp3 player, etc on my mobile. I have that - it's a tiny nokia, it's cheap (in the UK anyway) and does *exactly* what I want. UK mobiles do very well with the average consumer, thanks very much, and guess what, they all want cameras, etc.
It's only on
http://milkshake.dexy.org
IIRC the original one did not have a click wheel, but put the fast forward etc buttons in a ring around a scroll wheel. I always thought that was the better design.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
Maybe you have an older generation iPod or haven't ever updated it or something but I have never fast forwarded trying to increase/decrease volume, ever. To fast forward you would have to click the middle button when you don't have to click it at all to adjust volume. I use my iPod in my car everytime I drive and I have never had this problem, neither has anyone I know that owns an iPod. The screen scratch hasn't been a problem on mine (over a year old, not protector) and I've only heard complaints of the Nano's screen being a problem. As for overpriced, with the student discount it's not that bad, and many people I know got them free with their Apple computers (mail-in rebate though), so also not a bad price
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
My TiVo has 37 buttons and it controls only a single device. Of course, IMHO, about a third of them are unnecessary. For most devices, the extra buttons are needed because they naively try to jam universal remote functionality into a device remote, generally resulting in a device that sucks for pretty much every device it controls. I have never in my life found a universal remote that comes with a device to be particularly useful. They invariably lack some critical feature.
I now use a OneForAll Kameleon 8. You're not going to get that level of functionality in a remote that comes with a $200 device, though, and if you aren't going to go that far towards building a universal remote, you should build a well-designed single-device remote instead.
Thus, I'm down to 13 buttons that actually are actually necessary for a non-universal remote for a TiVo-like device. Play and slow-mo might sometimes be useful, so 15 on the high side. On the low side, 11---you can cut out the left and right arrows, too, if you work at the UI design hard enough.
For a device remote for a media center, if your best hardware designer says you need 39 buttons, you need to hire somebody who actually understands human-device interaction. That's not saying you should can the guy. He's probably a very good hardware designer. He just isn't the right person for designing a remote control, menus, and other HCI stuff. It takes a special breed, and sadly, most of the major electronics manufacturers have failed miserably at it.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
my custom built Pocket PC based remote ... controls every aspect of my HTPC ... with just one button: the touchscreen :)
Sure, and if Microsoft had its way, it would turn each of the 76,800 pixels on your 320x240 touchscreen into a button.
Think of all the wonderful functionality this could open up! And the marketing opportunities! Oh, joy!
The problem is that as these people stop buying the junk features, there is always a new crop of people who are coming in on the bottom end and buy those features. We call them teenagers. In a few years, they grow up and are replaced by a new batch of clueless consumers. However, while they make up one of the more vocal portions of the cell phone market (like totally, duh, and he said "no," and I was like...), they are by no means the majority.
I have a camera phone. The camera sucks big time. I bought it because the only bluetooth-enabled phones I could find have a camera. Waste of hardware.
It has a damn web browser. Every time I accidentally bump the @(&*#^$^*& M-mode button, I get charged about $0.50 on my next phone bill for the data transfer. I have computers around me all day. Why would I want to browse the web on a crappy little screen the size of my two thumbs?
My cell phone has email. If I want to get email, guess what? I'll get it on a computer. Why would I want to read hundreds of ads for herbal Vi/\gra replacements on a screen the size of my two thumbs at ten words per screen?
My cell phone has text messages. It also has a second, separate set of text messages that all seem to be advertisements from the phone company (WAP push). None of this ever gets used because the phone company charges me money every time I do.
For me, it's not a case of not being able to figure out the interface. I can navigate it just fine. What bugs me is that my eyesight isn't that great right now. In twenty years, navigating a cluttered, clumsy interface will be a real problem. And I shouldn't have to. None of those features add anything useful to the cell phone experience for me. Why can't I get a phone that is JUST A PHONE?
Okay, okay, so I do like having an address book with bluetooth syncing. That still falls really close to what a phone was intended to do, though. A phone being a phone book makes sense. A phone being a web browser and camera and IM client and email client and phone and phone book and personal organizer... not so much.
Just my $0.02.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
... that already (untested, but according to the blurb) operates 37 brands of TV, 43 brands of VCR, 58 brands of... well you get the picture;-) So I open my morning paper and there's Uncle Bill on the Warpath at CES, "unveiling" Vista, and announcing his iTunes Killer, his Google killer, his iPod killer, his TiVo killer... I've got a 10 spot here says my Universal Remote won't work on any of his junk, nor on Brother Steve's either.
.wmvs to play on my iPod, and I certainly detest having to sit the equivalent of an airline pilot's type certification every time I pick up a different remote :-(
What is it with these people? I want my music from ITMS to play on my WinMCE, my
This is supposed to be an appliance. If it has a potentially powerful UI, use it. My cable provider has changed the channel lineup two in the past year so I cannot see how memorizing numbers will help me. I'd rather pull up a channel guide and surf to the show I want.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Why not aTv Playlist, ala Itunes, kind of like mabey Itv.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
If there is some benefit to having a numeric keypad on such systems, I have yet to see it. Having an alphanumeric keyboard to make TV show searches faster, however, would be useful for some people. It should not be required, though, since hunting and pecking on a QWERTY keyboard won't actually be faster than picking letters from a grid (TiVo-style) for some customers.
While I do agree that sometimes simplifying interfaces can go too far by removing useful functionality, the reverse is far more often the case---naive interface designers throwing in the kitchen sink when all you needed was a Wet-Nap. The trick is striking the right balance, and while I may not always agree with the point where Apple strikes that balance, they're usually not far off the mark, IMHO.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Apple could always conceivably build in a wireless mouse, ala the Revolution controller, to make menu navigation and guide navigation even FASTER than current buttons. It might work something like expose, and especially if the channels are sorted the way iTunes sorts music (album, genre, playlist, rating), it might be a breeze to go through.
So you have ratings; then you only see the top 10 shows at any time.
Or you browse via genre; or via station. Terrestrial TV only has roughly 15 or so stations, max, at any one time (at least when I grew up).
If you are using Cable, I imagine that is where a wireless keyboard comes into play; Spotlight/iTunes like live search: "Desp" will bring up instantly "Desperate Housewives", "Desperado", and "Desperation", all showing right now. I mean, you're looking for shows, right? There's no reason to look up numbers, after all if you're browsing through TV guide, you're looking up the station for the show you want to watch, and not the station itself!
GPL Deconstructed
nokia 1100 the best cheap phone you can get. period.
My Mommy says smoking kills. Oh, is your Mommy a doctor? No. A scientific researcher of some kind? No. Well then sh
You select the DVD Player and the Front Row Interface maps to the remote to play/rewind/stepthrough, etc.
You select the DVR and the Front Row Interface maps to the same remote to do specific UI features. The Operating System manages the MVC relationship and dynamically calls the appropriate method with Cocoa's frameworks to do the magic.
A console has a very restricted interface. Simple but restrictive. A pc has hundreds of buttons. Complex but freeform.
One of the simplest examples is spell/weapon selection in game. On a PC you usually get a list handily labelled with the top row buttons 1-0 or in case of EQ2 1 to =. This allows fast switching/selection.
A console usually requires you to use and forwards/back setup.
Yet is this actually simpler? Depending on the game constantly having to search through a list could be considered a pain. Perhaps that is the reason Halo put grenades under a different button instead of making it a selectable weapon?
The Grenade under G is a nice feature however that also made it to PC land.So perhaps the limited input on the console made the PC with its 101 keys even easier to use? I can easily select my weapons directly AND thanks to consoles now can use grenades with a main weapon equipped.
The iPod is similar. I have had a lot of MP3 players and the iPod is my latest and it is nice. Yet at times I long for my iRiver player (wich died a painfull death) because while it had far more buttons and some odd button overloading once you figured them out it was so much easier. I never accidently changed the volume or skipped because all basic actions had their own function.
Simple example of how fewer buttons can be confusing? Well perhaps it is me and my fat clumsy fingers but I hate those buttons that combine skip and fastforward. The price we pay for saving two buttons is that you cannot instantly fast forward. You got to wait for the timeout and the fastforward to start.
There are other problems with the iPod, it is all to easy to screw up the volume as you try to change other settings. Yes the wheel is very nice usually but sometimes I just want to shuffle the selection (is it me or does iPod not support dynamic shuffling?) or change the equalizer settings without going deaf or losing all sound.
But this is nothing new. You got three kinds of gear control in cars. Full automatic, the american half-breed, and full manual. The fact that all three continue to be sold tells us that perhaps all three serve a segment of the market.
Perhaps it should be up to the consumer to decice what they want. For all the mac fans I do suggest that an awfull lot of people do not like the minimalist approach if it limits them in their speed. Proof? How many mac's are actually used with the original 1 button mouse?
Yes it is simple and the most default upgrade for a mac machine is a "real" mouse.
MS has always been in a sort of middle ground anyway. If you want total control you use a unix. If you want total simplicity you use a mac. The middle market is windows. It served them well. MS has plenty to worry about but their remote having more buttons is not one of them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
and not the architect that really knows why design decisions were made?
Why don't they make a "grandparents" line of mobile phones? My grandparents have a pretty nice phone with a camera and a few other tricks. They hardly answer it because it's too confusing for them. If it was made as simple as, oh, I don't know...a phone to operate, they may use it and understand it. It's not like they're using corded telephones at home or anything, they understand a few screens and how to operate it. What they don't understand is hitting a wrong button and getting taken into same crazy-ass settings menu when all they're trying to do is make (or receive) a phone call. I've never actually looked at their cell phones data, but I'm pretty sure it's full of pictures of them getting the flash bulb in their eyes.
:)
Oh, and on the other end of the spectrum are my cousins, ranging from 16 to 8, and they all share a cell phone. Top of the line sony ericson, with everything. They just run around constantly yapping on the thing and taking pictures of fucking everything. They know how to use all the features, but big deal. It's a 400 dollar toy to them. The features impress and entertain them, but are not actually useful. I'm sure they understand how to use it, but not why. Meh, kids.
My older brother (30) has a nice phone too, and uses all the features, but mostly to take pictures of the back of my head, or my dog attacking him. Um, yeah. Nice camera phone. yippee. Pictures that are quickly deleted, because they're of no god damned use. Sure, it's convenient to have a camera all the time, but what is really being missed is that the pictures have no meaning. If you can take a picture of anything, people will. If you don't want it in a scrapbook or something, why aim the lens at it?
They annoy as a camera, suck as a phone, and are pathetic at mp3s. They should just be a phone, and maybe IM. That's my experience with modern cell phones. It's enough to turn me Luddite. I'm the only one in the family without a phone. They hate me for my freedom.
I mean, you're looking for shows, right? There's no reason to look up numbers, after all if you're browsing through TV guide, you're looking up the station for the show you want to watch, and not the station itself!
But what if I just want to channel surf to see if there's anything on any channels that I don't currently know about that I might want to watch? Cable keeps adding more and more channels, I have a few hundred, and I like to browse every once in a while.
I see alot of statements about how an onscreen UI could simplify the button functionality. However, I don't agree with this at all in practice. This is from a person that owns a media center, and has since the first ones came out.
Sure, an onscreen UI can come down and save me a ton of buttons as far as fast forward and reversing video, but when I'm trying to get to a certain spot in the video, thats an extra step I'd rather NOT do. The separate fastfwd and reverse buttons work exceptionally well.
Also, about 6 of the buttons on the MCE remote are 'quick jump' buttons. with those 6, I can get to any section of the UI immediately. I can get there the same way using the 4 directionals and the ok button, but I find myself using the quick jump buttons quite a bit.
My parents, whom I purchased and MCE for, use just the directional buttons to do 90% of thier tasks, and that works fine. As far as they're concerned, the remote only has 5 buttons that they use.
I prefer to have both the excees buttons and an easy layout, as MS has done with this remote. It's the same as my mouse..it has 5 buttons and a scroll wheel. I prefer that then to be forced to Mac's 'LCD' of one button by default. I find that as a power user the extra buttons and wheels facilitate my work (esp. in graphics apps)
More may be more complex, but is not necessarily inferior or bad design.
Maybe with the next revision it will have a full command-line interface? With this keyboard it could run DOS? Hell, perhaps this could be the first TV remote on which its actually sensible to run Linux! (NetBSD might be more appropriate though.)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
As you can see here the remote control for the Dreambox has a lot more keys.
A microwave is an appliance. Mine has 25 buttons on it. I absolutely love the way it works.
These include:
* 6 shortcuts for commonly cooking tasks (my favorite being the popcorn button; perfect bag 'o popcorn every time)
* 10 numerical buttons
* a set clock button
* a cooking timer button
* a power level button
* a start button
* a cancel/clear button
* an add 30 seconds button
* an options button
* a set of add/subtract 10 seconds buttons
My oven is an appliance. It has 17 buttons on it, plus an additional 4 knobs for the burners. I hate the way it works; you constantly have to reach over a hot stove and repeatedly press buttons to change temperatures and times (it despirately needs dials that control a digital readout).
My dish washer is an appliance. It has 10 buttons. I generally only hit the start button; I get clean dishes 2 hours later.
Clearly, the number of buttons (functions at a fingertip) isn't the sole metric which determines how easy or difficult a device is to use. It is merely a factor in the user experience.
Being able to pull up a user guide and find the channel you want is great. That's a great user experience when you don't know what you want. Being forced to pull up a guide and find the channel you want to change to in a large list isn't great. It is a tedious process that results in a poor user experience.
OK, maybe I'm just dense, but I just don't understand this obsession with "media centre" PCs. Why would I want a PC connected to my television. I already have Sky+, a DVD player and a stereo in my living room. Why would I want to connect my Mac Mini into all this?
One problem with your argument: it's flawed.
:P
You're working on the assumption that consoles are inherently limited to *JUST* a controller. The PS2 has had the capability to connect a USB keyboard and mouse from the very beginning, and games have been released that use this capabiltiy (albeit few). Ergo, the fault lies not on Sony, but on the games developers.
And while the keyboard/mouse combo might be good for FPS games and RTS games, there's not the level of control achieveable with a controller when playing, say, Burnout 3 or a flight sim (and yes, the PS2 controller is *EXCELLENT* for flight sims).
Besides, I'm waiting for my neural interface á la Matrix.
Goten Xiao
There is a giant flaw in your argument. A keyboard and mouse are *optional* peripherals for a PS2. The game still has to function with just a standard controller (and this IS the expected user experience on a console).
I sympathise on the hard-to-use interfaces and unnecessary feature-bloat. I believe some manufacturers are actually going to produce simple phones in the near future, as they've realised there is a market for them.
For myself, I'm finding that the features on my phone are now at the genuinely useful stage. I can actually use the camera to take decent snapshots (2 megapixel, light, usable night mode). It has a 1Gb memory stick in it, which I load with MP3s over USB (bluetooth is a little slow). This happens automatically when I plug it in. It also syncs the address book. It has an FM radio, which I listen to walking to work. And the battery lasts a few days between charges.
I can totally understand others wanting more direct simplicity in each of their gadgets. Bring it on! For me, I'll only carry a single thing around with me, so having it all-in-one is what I want.
On the accidential web browsing front, that one gets on my nerves too. Simple solution: set up some new dummy user accounts on the phone and set them to be the default connection. Now when you bang the button, it can't connect, and you don't get billed.
A video that illustrates how great Microsoft really is, feat. Conan 'O Brien: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6774591592 070724791&q=bill+gates/
Per Aspera Ad Astra.
True. But if I'm playing on a console, I'm more likely to be faster on the game when using the controller.
Goten Xiao
depends. the program guide on the set top box here takes about 1 minute to boot up (and the stb itself takes at least 2)
Ok, so the Microsoft one has to do more stuff, so it needs more buttons. Sounds fair enough, but how can adding a couple of functions require it to need 6.5 times as many buttons?!
Surely the question BIll should be answering is, "Why don't the remotes have even vaguely similar numbers of buttons"? And if I were him I would expect an answer rather than some vague "Oh you know, it does more... things..." response. It might be that the Microsoft one is actually better, but seems unlikely at this point...
Microsoft need to realise that it's the fact that Apple think very carefully about this kind of thing (and the fact that Microsoft clearly don't) that causes Apple hardware to be that little bit nicer. Microsoft have the money to employ people to be nitpicking, pedantic and just downright geeky about every little detail, so maybe they should.
Apple customers are capitalist in that they place a value on content. It is an asset to be protected. It may only 99 cents a song but considering the nearly 10,000 songs that barely fit on my 60 gig iPod 5G, that amounts to something.
Rhapsody customers are communist in that they place no value on the content. Their subscription fees get them nothing but access. The day its over, for whatever reason, they're left with a ringing in their ears, but nothing to listen to.
The analogies can be extended further, but I think I'll do that on my blog and in my podcast.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
bought one engineer this time?
I don't care about downloadable ringtones, especially as my phone will play MP3s, so I could (if I cared) just make them on a computer and save myself the rip-off charges (why does a ringtone cost more than the entire song?). The latest fad gimmick is 'videotones', which is a video playing on the screen when someone rings you. Certainly I spend enough time extricating the phone from my pocket/bag/etc that I'm not going to be watching the video, I'm going to be answering/cancelling the call.
... I don't take my real digital camera everywhere with me, and indeed I commonly scavenge my rechargable batteries from it in an emergency so it isn't in a usable state half the time. It is nice to be able to at least take a picture of something that is memorable/funny/etc whenever that may happen. Quality sucks though on most phones.
... although it'd probably look like an iPod, heh.
However some of the other features are useful. PDA functionality, even if basic, is handy - it saves me a device as I don't need a real PDA, but having the address book, todo list, calendar and so on available is really convenient. Interface for accessing them could be better though...
And cameras
The real issue with my phone is the touchscreen interface. It doesn't have a thumb-usable interface for many things, so you have to extricate the stylus a lot more than you should. When I want to make a call I have to enter in the unlock code (had my phone stolen a couple of times, so I don't want to make it easy for the thieves) on an on-screen keyboard. ARGH!
I'm seriously hoping that Apple will come out with a phone of their own design in the next year. They might get the UI right
TiVo has shown that the old paradigm of viewing channels is no longer used by many people - it has changed to one of time shifting programs to watch as desired. When used in this way, there is little, if any, need for entering channel numbers (one records programs based on other attributes, such as title or keyword). Choices for viewing are picked from a menu of available selections, not by entering channel numbers.
If you're not using the Mac as a time shifting DVR and want to watch live TV, just use the TV remote. My assumption is that most people will prefer a TV with an add-on PC/DVR and not a PC/DVR used as a TV.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
This P.I.G. will walk on the water, This P.I.G. will walk on the sea, This P.I.G. will walk whereever he wants.
You forgot to mention, that at first it will only be available on the "Mac Media Center Shuffle", which has no screen attached. Because who wants to watch todays crap TV anyway?
Numbers can still be useful.
Examples:
If you forget to save your position in a show when quitting out of it (e.g. to go out for the day), number pads make it easy to jump to a specific time.
Number pads also make it easier to navigate massive 200-channel EPGs.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If you forget to save your position in a show when quitting out of it (e.g. to go out for the day), number pads make it easy to jump to a specific time.
This is where those handy little features like remembering where you stopped watching the show come in handy. I'd far rather have a device that picks up where I left off all the time (with me having to hit the back button or skip button or whatever to get back to the beginning (on the very rare occasion that that's what I actually want to do)), than one that starts at the beginning everytime and makes me find the spot that I stopped watching.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
The fact is that most people don't really want all this crap on their phones.
I'm afraid that from my limited observations, you're quite wrong. I agree that some people, my mother, for example, agree with you and don't want their phones to do anything more than be phones. Then again, 9 times out of 10 my mother doesn't even take her phone with her (and I got her one that does almost nothing beyond being a phone, b/w screen, no bluetooth, no wap, ok it has games and ringtones but she never goes into them).
Most people who actually want a phone (and want to use it for more than just emergencies), it would appear want most (if not all) of the features on offer. WAP was a disaster, really badly designed and massively over priced, so rightly, nobody wants to use it (and I'll bet that pretty much everyone who does use it, goes through the google wap to web portal, what a wonderful bit of code that is). Many people enjoy having mp3 (or equivalent) ringtones, and not just teenagers. They can be very annoying if people listen to them as music via the loudspeakers in public places, but to indicate when the phone is ringing, its helpful and just cool to be able to personalise it (mine plays the music from zero wing, I can always recognise my phone).
Cameraphones are beginning to come out using 2 megapixel cameras, which will make them more useful for everyone, but many people (who don't transfer the images off the phone) still enjoy and make widespread use of the traditional 640x480 ultra grainy ones, since on a phone screen the images look fine, most people never realise how crap the camera really is. Cameras work for one simple reason: most people would not carry a camera around with them 24/7, but most people do carry their phone with them everywhere, thus enabling them to take quick snaps of things they otherwise would not be able to. One of the first pictures I ever took with my phone was of one of those "smart" payphones showing a blue screen of death, and its become something of a hobby, whenever I'm out and see something other than a computer showing a windows error message, I snap a quick piccie of it... I'm not goina carry around a digital camera for that purpose, but a cameraphone does the job nicely.
A few phones (Nokia 9500 specifically) have started adding WiFi to their list of features, which gets a lot of use since around here at least you can quite often find free wifi connections and its large screen make surfing the web (the real web, not wap) very easy. It is useful to be able to look things up when your out, like, comparing the price in the shop with the prices on ebay, or getting directions to where your going. Also, email is a useful function to have. I've sat in the middle of a forrest at night, and by the light of the moon typed an email to my gf about how beautiful it is and how I wished she was there.
These features are used, and are desired.
Maybe not everyone uses every feature, some features are rarely used at all, but its still very nice to have them there when you need them, and its not just the uber-geeks who want them, nor is it just the teenagers.
If you don't want these features get a phone without them. I have friends and family that wanted simple phones so that was what they got.
Of course I don't know where you live, but in the UK these sort of phones have always been available. For example http://www.gsmarena.com/sagem_vs1-1181.php the Sagem VS1.
What I don't understand is how you ended up with a phone you don't want. Why not keep the old one? Or if it is your first mobile phone and you couldn't find a simple one, get a second hand one.
I'm pretty sure you only have your all singing and dancing phone because *you* decided to buy it.
Menu->Navigate->Scan->Enter
Or
Menu->Up
Or
Up/Down
It boils down to design. If you're browsing channels, you might as well have a dedicated 'browse/scan/surf' function. If you're skipping through stations, then all you need to do is Up/Down, assuming volume is Left/Right. Are you asking for a keypad so you can go "014->enter", "022->enter", "036->enter"? You don't see iPods with number pads do you? People have been successfully navigating thousands, tens of thousands, of songs on iPods with only five buttons and a scroll wheel for years now.
GPL Deconstructed
Let me just say that I'm glad that you didn't design my Tivo remote. Personally I use a learning remote that I've trained from my Tivo remote, but I use almost all of the buttons you listed as unnecessary at least a couple times per week.
Also I absolutely hate scrolling through songs on my iPod. I have over 5000 tracks on my iPod and scrolling through a list of artist names either takes forever or kicks the scroll into "hyper" where it jumps way towards the end of the alphabet. I would hate it if my Tivo lost the page up - page down buttons in favor of some wacky multispeed scroll.
I've been interested in MythTV for a while now, and have been planning on setting it up on some cheap hardware (with a hardware encoding tuner card). I've heard that in some ways it handles HDTV better than Win MCE, which won't really affect me for a while still, because I don't as yet have any interest in HDTV, or an HD capable TV.
But I've installed it on my laptop, which doesn't have a tuner, just for the sake of poking around the menus, checking out the program guide, it's really quite nice, I like it a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on the hardware I need to build a real myth box soon.
You must get so many ladies with such an angry attitude toward a music playing device.
I want to turn this song up. Ok, scroll the wheel. WTF, why the Fuck is my song fast forwarding. Oh shit, I must have clicked twice.
So don't "click twice."
1) Volume controls should have had an up/down toogle. Reusing the same UI for fast forward/rewind and volume control is just retarded. If you disagree with me, try using an iPod in your car sometime ( while being a responsible driver and not staring at your iPod ).
Yeah, I do it every single day. Your idea would mean fumbling for volume up/down buttons.
2) Worst , most scratch screen ever
This doesn't have anything to do with the volume interface. Now you're just ranting.
3) overly expensive.
How so? For the price of a flash drive, you can get a flash-based player.
Now, I realise that slashdot is currently going through an Apple Wack-Off-Athon(tm) at the moment, and insulting apple is taboo.
You're just one of those trendy Apple-bashers who thinks they're so damned enlightened because they're "going against the grain." STICK TO THE MAN, YEAH! THAT'LL SHOW US!
Yet, frankly the iPod is an over hyped POS. If mine wasnt given to me, I would be right pissed off at the money I (didnt) pay for it.
Go to Undernet and visit IRC channel #aaff. Anyone in there? No? Yeah, that's the channel with all the people that care.
"Sufferin' succotash."
They can't release MCE for X360, because the hardware manufacturers would kill them. MS is hamstrung by their legacy business in PC software. And to make profits, the X360 can't just be purchased for use as a DVR, so they're hamstrung by the videogames business model.
I can barely imagine living without this setup or something like it now [that's called hyperbole, Captain Obvious]. Games, TV, Movies, Photos, Internet all from my "TV", all can be controlled using wireless mouse + keyboard (and the keyboard is not used for TV/DVD/Photos). A pair of wireless rumble pads complete the system.
I have a remote from ATI, and it went into the scrap heap after about 1 hour of service. Terrible design, many many buttons that don't feel or work very well. The mouse is a dream. In a previous life I used one of those Logitech Surfboards [or whatever the thing was called - trackball mouse you hold in your hand] - and that worked great, but mine broke, and I think they've since disappeared.
Anyway, the bulk interface shouldn't be in your hand, it should be on the screen. How can you make 62 buttons look sleek and elegant while preserving ease-of-use? On screen interfaces allow for dynamic changes and custom layouts to accomodate user preferences.
Relying on Microsoft to build the foundation for all home digital entertainment is like relying on Ford to build the foundation for quality automobiles. (Psst. Hey geniuses. The Japanese already beat you to it.)
All right, I'll admit up front that this post is gonna get modded down to -infinity politically incorrect fascist flamebait in like no time flat, but here goes:
Ford builds transportation for men. These thingamabobs are called "trucks". Toyota and their brethren build transportation for women and queers. These thingamabobs are called "cars".
If it weren't for the idiotic government-imposed CAFE standards, Ford wouldn't even bother producing a car anymore [with the possible exception of the Crown Vic for the police car/taxi market].
And yes, I've spent considerable time in Toyota pickups [and cars], and to compare any Toyota with a Ford F-Series is like comparing a can of sardines with a magnum of champagne.
Funny that that didn't turn out to be the case and they were actually boasting about 39 buttons and all their functions! I think the others replying to this article about how a grand PC in a box is less desirable when compared to something that just does what you want and follows the KISS rule are correct.
Twinstiq, game news
So there's an engineer in charge of Microsoft's TV strategy. No wonder it's going nowhere. Engineers should stick with what they're good at, which is not (usually) product design. Granted, there are some engineers who are also great designers, but in the case of Microsoft, it is one of my pet peeves that their software is often over-engineered and, as a result, unintuitive.
No, I don't want to explore the Recycle Bin.
Looking as technology moves from the desktop to the appliance I see MS having a LOT of problems in the future. It's not that they don't have smart people in the company, it's that they need a new company mindset. So far they've not doing that well. In the appliance space people DON'T want everything and the kitchen sink. For appliances, Less is More!! Contrast this with the idea of Windows, a huge monolith of intertwined programs where more programs are added on like garbage getting dumped into a landfill.
Apple definitely understands this idea on a corporate level, not just a individual level. Look at all of it's products very elegant and consumer friendly. Nintendo is another company I see understanding this idea very well. Look at the new revolution controller.
I think someone missed the joke. ...and is maybe a little too defensive.
ATI does one thing well: multimedia PC hardware. And then they ruin it with their craptacular add-ons, limited, ugly software, shockingly bad drivers, completely missed opportunities in game development, and apparently cheap useless remotes.
ATI is to video hardware as Microsoft is to operating systems: a hype machine backed up by defective trinkets.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
They just announced it, in cooperation with Starz!
I read that same announcement, but what comes to mind is "too little, too late"... especially with Google entering the video sale market with homebrew DRM (read: not Microsoft).
I was thinking more along the lines of why was Microsoft not distributing video well before even the Apple Disney deal that brought out Lost.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Like I said, I want a phone that can integrate with the rest of my digital lifestyle without trying to duplicate every other device in it---a phone that is just a phone and basic phone book, but one that doesn't live in a vacuum. One that can provide data service to a computer if I wanted to do so, but doesn't try to also be a computer itself. In other words, the iPod of telephones, doing one thing, but doing it -well-.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
- You really don't need the number keys, or at least you shouldn't. (A need for menu shortcuts just mean that too many things are nested at the wrong level of nesting. Beyond that, the numbers are nearly useless.)
- You use the power button out of habit, but you don't really need to use it because it doesn't really do anything.
- You can put the play and pause buttons together without any loss of functionality by simply making FF/REW buttons become single frame forward and backwards while paused (which I think they already do).
So keep your page up/down buttons (and call them that, since it's rare to actually use them for channel up/down anyway), and don't cut the slow-mo button. You're still talking about a button count down in the upper teens or lower twenties and you haven't significantly decreased the usability of the remote in any significant way.BTW, bear in mind that most people won't have 5000 shows on their TiVos. I would think that a scroll wheel would work pretty well with 1-200 TV shows. I'd love to try such an interface and see how well it worked, if only to satisfy my curiosity....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Well it appears that you didn't search hard enough for a device that suits your needs, as phones that fill your requirements do already exist. At least, they do here.
the poster who mentioned that Apple uses context
rather than devices is on the mark.
Apple has always been more about the inner things
working well... they have also been more about
locking them away...
A back-to-basics mobile launched
Vodafone is launching a back-to-basics mobile phone in response to customer demand for simplicity.
Vodafone Simply will be available in two handsets offering just voice and text services.
Both phones have a large screen with legible text and symbols, and three dedicated buttons for direct access to the main screen, contacts and messages.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.