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.'"

Comments

Not too bright, are they?

[tinpan]

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.

Re:Not too bright, are they?

[vought]

Mr. Gates is bright enough (chances are he scored higher on the SAT than you, and I mean chances are... He scored a 1590, and the 99th percentile is a mere 1450...) to know HOW to do it. What he wonders is WHY they've done it. There is a big difference there: between how and why.

I think you're about 90 degrees away from the real reason. Gates and Company never design something like the Front Row remote the first time they set out to design an "easy-=to-use" product.

At Apple, products are not designed to look stylish, although they often end up stylish because of how they are designed. The aesthetic at Apple is clean but complex, a bit like the plastic engine covers that became popular with the German automakers in the early 1990s. The covers had little functional value beyond cosmetics and making the vital bits (dipstick, coolant level, washer fill) stick out more clearly. To a degree, the plastic engine covers made the car user's job easier and cleaned up what had for many years been a confusing wasteland of hoses, belts and wires by eliminating those items from sight.

Microsoft applies conventional controls to existing problems; Apple more often applies aesthetic improvements that also benefit the user by eliminating the surface complexity of a product.

One example on the iMac's remote control is the forward/back/up/down button.

Functionally and aesthetically, there's no good reason to have four separate buttons when a centered round four cornered button will serve just as well. Apple places a fifth "action" button inside the round button because it's a short jump when navigating by thumb - the natural digit for this work.

By placing the round button in the center of the remote control, it falls to hand easily for both right and left-handed folks, and provides equal-reach thumb/finger control of each function under the single button.

This isn't a matter of how Steve Jobs or Bill Gates thinks, or what they scored on their SATs, but a true measure of how each company approaches problems.

After a thoughtful look at Media Center PCs and a few days of using a 20" iMac, it's clear the Microsoft designs controls for feature sets while Apple feature sets include pleasing product design.

Apple's ability to create functional designs is not something Microsoft, Creative, or anyone else is going to be able to "figure out" easily. It's not a math problem or a supply chain issue that can be reasoned out in the Silicon-Valley meeting room culture.

While seasoned designers can create stunning enclosures or cases, they have not shown the kind of human-centered thoughtfulness Apple has always been good at. And it's not just the physical product design or OS "theme". Everything at Apple, down to the styrofoam in the box is _designed from the get-go, rather than being grafted to a marketing requirements document.

Apple writes their own rules (and succeeds in a style-sensitive market) because they've got their own language.

buttons buttons BUTTONS.

[DrWhizBang]

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.

Re:buttons buttons BUTTONS.

[norminator]

The buttons could easily function like this:

Menu Navigation: 1) Up, 2) Down, 3) Left, 4) Right, 5) Select, 6) ?

Live TV: 1) Volume Up, 2) Volume Down, 3) Channel Down, 4) Channel Up, 5)?, 6) Menu

Recorded Videos: 1) Skip Ahead, 2) Skip Back, 3) Rewind, 4) Fast Forward, 5) Play/Pause, 6) Menu

It's the overloaded buttons you're talking about, but it can be done very intuitively. I don't know how they do it on the iMac, but I think it could work farily well for DVR purposes, too. The iPod uses its wheel for scrolling through menus, adjusting volume, seeking through songs, and even various functions in the simple games it has onboard. Overloading doesn't have to be bad. If it can be done in an obvious way, it's better than having a remote with 40 buttons, 30 of which have absolutely no function most of the time. I hate the MS Media Center remotes. There's not only a button for the main menu, but buttons for each of the main activities, which can all be easily accessed from the main menu. Five buttons where one would work fine.

Anyone get the idea . . .

[ElephanTS]

MicroSoft are doing a massive PR job this year?

All was quiet for a while and now it seems like a BS tsunami.

the unspoken battle

[User 956]

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.

Re:the unspoken battle

[User 956]

Except the mac mini is specifically lacking everything it needs to completely own the home theatre space - quality A/V outputs.

The DVI output on the mac mini is a high quality output which is found on a wide variety of modern TVs. If your TV doesn't have that, Apple sells a DVI->Svideo adapter for the mac mini. Apple's competing on this front, they're just weirdly silent about it.

Re:the unspoken battle

[User 956]

Yes, but no S/PDIF! What the hell are they thinking?! I've never bought an Apple, but I probably will when the release a mini with a freakin' TOSLINK port.

Is $35 too expensive?

Seriously, I'm no Apple fan, but everything they're doing with respect to the mini just *screams* home media device. And from their strategy with the ipod, you can bet that they'll slowly integrate the most-requested features into the actual product, and leave the less-requested features available as addons from third parties. If there's one thing Apple knows how to do, it's doing market research.

Re:the unspoken battle

[assassinator42]

1. The 360 can't even play video if you don't have Windows Media Center. 2. Even with Media Center, the 360 can't play certain codecs, such as DivX/Xvid and AVC. 3. The 360 apparently doesn't conform to the "media renderer" standard for playing back music and photos from a PC. I believe it also has limited audio codecs for playing back music during games. Honestly, xbox media center for the original xbox is probably better at playing media than the 360.

Re:the unspoken battle

[Zathrus]

That's why an update to the mini is in order

Agreed. It's certainly in need of an update, although I suspect they're holding off for the Intel CPU line (as with many of their other badly needed updates).

Thing is, if you cram all of that in one box you'll completely blow the price ceiling -- you'd be looking at closer to $1000 instead of $500, and that will appeal to a much smaller community of users. It would definitely be a serious competitor to MS based HTPCs though.

It's a lot to cram into that small of a space, but I think they could do it.

The biggest problem will be cooling. Put in a large enough HD to be useful (particularly for recording HD content) and you'll completely blow the cooling budget for the box -- 250G+ HDs are warm. And they don't have enough real estate to put in a large, slow moving (and thus quiet) fan on the current form factor.

I think the smarter bet here would be going for a chassis that's larger than the current Mini, but smaller than your normal box. That would probably solve all of the heat and space issues.

Baby steps...

[sexyrexy]

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.

And even if...

[Sosarian]

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.

Screw Apple *and* Microsoft

[typical]

*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.

Re:Screw Apple *and* Microsoft

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

and I bet *you're* really comfortable controlling your media with 104 keys, but most people won't be.

Apple's design proves the idea that perfection is obtained not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing else to take away.

if everyone else in the world aspired only to levels such as using a 104 key keyboard just to change channel, then computers would still take up an entire room.

TV remote's numeric buttons

[wesley96]

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.

Tactile UI design

[quokkapox]

not so much how many buttons, but whether they layout is useful

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.

One button?

[HermanAB]

I thought Apple's remote control would have only ONE button.

the real answer

[webdev]

"Mr. Gates, Apple didn't release their remote until we had already gone to manufacturing."

Except...

[2nd Post!]

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.

Mac Mini + Front Row

[norminator]

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.

Re:Mac Mini + Front Row

[FireFury03]

and it would be nice to have full Tivo-like capabilities from my PC

Can I take this opportunity to point at MythTV. I've been using it for several years and it's still better than the systems the sat and cable operators are providing here in the UK. I was stuck using my parent's NTL Digital system at Christmas and realised just how much functionality I take for granted in Myth which just isn't there in the NTL system. Similarly I hear friends commenting about features they wished Sky+ had and they're always things that Myth has already been doing for ages.

Admittedly there are a few bugs that neet to be mopped up in Myth but on the whole it's a good project. I think the only thing I'd really like to be able to do that I can't already do is use a satellite tuner in my myth box instead of re-encoding the S-Video output from my Sky box. (Yes, Myth does support DVB-S cards, but getting a DVB-S card with a common interface is very pricey still and since Sky won't produce a VideoGuard CAM I'd be stuck using an illegal programmable CAM such as the DragonCAM - total cost, £100 for the card, £50 for the common interface and £80 for the CAM == way too pricey)

Buttons?

[Rand310]

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...

Number of buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why 6 bottons?

[Urusai]

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.

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[J. Random Luser]

psst, watch Steve next Tuesday morning

Knobs vs. Buttons

[zhiwenchong]

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.

Re:Building the foundations

[snuf23]

"Psst. Hey geniuses. The Japanese already beat you to it."

I don't know about that. I think the Tivo user interface and remote control are excellent and a hell of a lot easier than those crapola VCR programming tools.

Home entertainment versus computing

[Glowing Fish]

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.

Simple, Easy is NIH at Microsoft.

[SeaFox]

[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".

Buttons

[carlislematthew]

[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.)

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).

Re:Six buttons vs. 39 buttons

[Compholio]

Of course, the Lunix community will begin a new era of six button jokes as of this year.

Well, as a good Linux user I see several buttons: left, right, middle, "thumb 1", "thumb 2", "roll forward", and "roll backward". I suppose you could get rid of one of the thumb buttons, but then how would you reload your weapon without the keyboard? ;)

why do they bother?

[penguin-collective]

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.

war of the buttons

[lucm]

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?

but they *never* achieve simplicity

[matt_maggard]

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

Why only 6 buttons? Here's why.

[goldsounds]

When Microsoft created the MCE remote, they simply copied the style of VCR one-function-per-button remotes. This is stupid and short-sighted - the reason VCR remotes evolved that way is because for many years VCR's couldn't overlay fancy animated menus on the screen that give the user a sense of context.

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

Re:Why only 6 buttons? Here's why.

[aristotle-dude]

Do you have all of the chanel numbers memorized? Are you really going to turn Closed Captioning on and off often? That is the key to simplicity. You do not have to have uncommon options on the remote when they are not accessed frequently. Do you also want a Widescreen and separate 4:3 button? What about a 5.1 sound button? Would you also like an optical output button?

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[LO0G]

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.

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[Overly Critical Guy]

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.

What a Putz.

[jcr]

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

Re:Let's count them

[jackbird]

Play/Pause/Record can be only one button. FF and RW can be eliminated if you use the Channel buttons while the media is paused. And the Menu can be selected by going to Channel number zero.

Please, do us all a favor and don't ever design a user interface, form, or procedure that anyone will ever use.

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[Pollardito]

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"

Re:Why 6 bottons?

[dgatwood]

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.

• Clear and enter are unnecessary. You should be able to do that in other ways nearly as easily.
• Thumbs up and down are also unnecessary. You could easily do that by hitting select and using arrows over to "rate this show" and give it a 0-5 rating or something. Why do you need two extra buttons when there are already up/down buttons?
• Play really isn't necessary if you get rid of single-stepping with the pause button.
• Slow definitely isn't necessary. I think I've used it... maybe twice. Ever.
• Record isn't necessary, as you can record by hitting select a couple of times even with the existing TiVo software.
• The TV power button isn't really necessary, IMHO. It's not like the TiVo remote gives any useful control over the TV. (Woohoo. Power, mute, and volume. Really useful.) That's four more buttons you don't need.
• The ten number controls could be replaced by a single "channel select button". Most people don't punch in channels on their TiVo. I've done that... maybe once.... No, I don't think I've EVER done that. I select a show in the guide or search for a show in the upcoming listings or pick a show from the now playing list. Selecting a channel by number... there are too many channels for that to even be useful. For the rare occasions where someone actually needs to punch in a number, it doesn't take THAT much more time to use the arrows and select to punch in a number in a 3x4 grid. Heck, forget the 'select channel' button and just make the number pad be to the left of the cursor when you hit select while playing. Make that ten fewer buttons.
• The channel up/down buttons are redundant. You have up/down buttons. The TiVo uses that as a page-up/page-down, which is also unnecessary. Scrolling should be more natural---holding down the button should scroll faster and faster like an iPod scroll wheel instead of requiring you to single-step through a long list. That's two more.
• The TiVo is always on. No matter how hard you try, you can't REALLY turn it off with the power button. So why, then, does it have one?

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.

Re:Why 6 bottons?

[dgatwood]

The fact is that most people don't really want all this crap on their phones. They just believe that they do because the cell companies hype all these features. When they actually get the phones and find that the features have a clumsy UI, subpar quality, subpar performance, etc., they complain about how complicated the phone is. Then they turn around and buy the cheapest phone that they can get the next time they upgrade. I hear cell phone users complaining about relatively simple cell phones being too complicated all the time. Most people really just want a phone that is a phone.

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.

Re:Why 6 bottons?

[dgatwood]

I hope you're kidding. If you've ever used a TiVo or DirecTV or digital cable, I doubt you ever use those number buttons anymore. Program guides are a much better way of selecting shows than channel surfing because you can see a half dozen channels at once, along with program descriptions. And when you have 20 channels, remembering channel numbers was easy; when you have 700 channels... not so much.

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.

Re:Building the foundations

[dgatwood]

And yet it still has about 20 buttons more than are actually useful. (See my earlier post.)

The TiVo interface isn't the pinnacle of achievement by any means. It just seems amazing because every manufacturer prior to that deserves a permanent place in the hall of UI shame.

The TiVo lacks power-user features (and at least in the version I have, lacks a lot of basic things like soft padding, too), and there are a number of things that could easily be improved by a good UI designer. The first example that comes to mind is that two shows back to back on the same channel should not be a conflict, regardless of padding. There should be a way to make season passes migrate to a different channel when a show moves without creating a new one.

For another example, the TiVo does, IMHO, a lousy job at figuring out why I give a show thumbs up/down. I like drama, but not really old, B&W stuff. It just can't seem to understand that. It also can't seem to understand that giving a thumbs up to programming in French (Je parle un peu) does not mean that I want to see every Spanish language show on TV (No habla Español).

For another example, the TiVo recalculates scheduling when I reorder season passes, even if I move the program back to where it was before. That's a pain in the backside when I'm trying to get something done quickly, and doubly so if I want to reorder several shows. Whatever idiot thought of that should be flogged repeatedly with a wet noodle.

And what's the point of a power button? You can't really turn it off. What's the point of a TiVo button? You either are going to the now playing list (which has a button), showcases (which shouldn't even exist, IMHO), live TV (which has a button), messages and setup (with the TiVo button should jump to directly), or pick programs to record.

A sane hierarchy would be a single menu containing:

• Pick Programs to Record
• TiVo messages
• Preferences
• Setup (which should be its own menu that includes the rest of the M&S menu options).

Lousy menu hierarchy as it is now. Oh, and Standby should go away, too.

I could go on for hours. It's not a great design. It's a mediocre design. It's just orders of magnitude better than the complete garbage that existed prior to it. I hope someone can do better.

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[tyrione]

Nah. Just make your interface override itself that provides a button that works for more than one view and thus augments it's usefulness without having to create more buttons.

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.

Looking at the iPod video you can see both sides

[SmallFurryCreature]

Or anyone who has played a PC vs Console version of a game can tell the difference.

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.

less buttons != better usability

[Jfarro]

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.

Why do I want any of this?

[salmacis2]

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?

Diametrically opposed views of "value of content"

[crovira]

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.