Slashdot Mirror
Your Next TV Interface Will Be a Tablet
waderoush writes "You can forget all the talk about 'smart' and 'connected' TVs: nobody, not even Apple, has come up with an interface that's easy to use from 10 feet away. And you can drastically curtail your hopes that Roku, Boxee, Netflix, and other providers of free or cheap 'over the top' Internet TV service will take over the world: the cable and satellite companies and the content owners have mounted savvy and effective counterstrikes. But there's another technology that really will disrupt the TV industry: tablet computing. The iPad, in particular, is the first 'second screen' device that's good enough to be the first screen. This Xconomy column argues that in the near future, the big-screen TV will turn into a dumb terminal, and your tablet — with its easy-to-use touch interface and its 'appified' approach to organizing content — will literally be running the show in your living room." Using a tablet as a giant remote seems like a good idea, and a natural extension of iPhone and Android apps that already provide media-center control. Maybe I'm too easily satisfied, but the 10-foot interface doesn't seem as hopeless as presented here; TiVo, Apple, and others been doing a pretty good job of that for the past decade.
Or do you just have a dedicated tablet that never leaves the viewing area? What about multiple TVs? Gets expensive really quick.
Has been for decades, without external network access it does nothing, I have to plug it in to cable, radio or computers for it to be useful.
I think the author of the article summarises the state of the industry quite nicely. We're in the middle of a massively muddled migration from broadcasting toward video on demand (or whatever you want to call it) and delivered over IP. The "connected TV" apps in development in agency labs everywhere are going to fail spectacularly unless they are looking to make apps for iOS, Amazon (not "generic" Android) and perhaps Windows that stream video content.
I already use my iPhone and iPad as remotes with AirPlay it's absurdly simple to flip video onto any screen in my house or office.
But will broadcasters like Sky and Comcast go for this? And will this fly in non-American/European countries where state and local satellite broadcasters will fight like hell not to be disintermediated?
What do we think?
I already control my media with my phone. I have a DLNA/UPNP server and a DLNA/UPNP BluRay player. My phone can watch the movies or send them from the server to the player.
I bought the HDD with the server off of woot.com over a year ago, and I've found that XBMC makes my dedicated drive look crappy (but the dedicated drive takes less power and space).
I started this back in my iProduct days with iTunes. I just wanted something a little less iWalledGarden so I went with UPNP as much as possible (due to it being totally open) with DLNA as a sort of "make it work smoother with products that don't like open" patch.
To top it all off my Bluray player has a remote control application for my phone that doesn't say anything about being DLNA.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The whole point of TV is to veg out and channel surf. It's called an "idiot box" for reason. Anything that takes your eyes off the screen ruins the experience. This is why a pad remote will never work in a million years on the market. You simply must have physical tactile buttons on a remote. Some virtual interface on a sheet of glass will not do.
This idea is an epic fail!
Life is not for the lazy.
...now everyone can have their own tablet and fight over control of the boob tube.
And do people really feel the need for an "'appified' approach to organizing content" on their TV? Sheesh, get a life.
We'll probably see a generation of remotes that look more like a e-reader, with a nonvolatile display. Most tablet devices require charging daily, if not more often. TV remotes today only need batteries once every few years.
I've not seen a 10 foot interface done well. Most are too much like the giant accessibility font versions of GUIs. They all look like I have a 420i display on a 19" TV that's 10' away. If I have a big screen with 1080p, please put more stuff on it! Paging down through a channel guide five lines at a time when I could easily be viewing 20 or more at a time is frustrating.
And navigating with a 4-way button isn't the greatest, either. I'm thinking that using the iPhone as a Wacom pad-like device operating as a remote mouse would be a lot easier than click-up-up-up-over-over-oops-too-far-back-OK.
IR remotes aren't the greatest, either. Without feedback, they have no way of ensuring the button pressed by the user makes it to the device.
Kinect has an interesting concept: reach to the widget and hold steady until it activates. Not sure I like it, but at least they're trying something new. Of course, it's not nearly "ready enough" to be a general purpose remote, at least not yet. It can't identify the average couch potato if they're not standing up.
The Sonos application on the iPhone is probably the kind of interface that works best. Use the local pad to browse and navigate, then once the selection is made, command the big screen to do it. Which is what the TFA is no doubt saying.
John
FWIW, the Kindle Fire, the Nook Color, and the iPad are all available in contract-free form. You don't like those?
You seem to be treating the iPad as a dedicated TV remote that never gets used for anything else.
The iPad is already next to me whenever I am watching TV. I check texts, emails, look up actors that are in the movies we are watching, etc etc.
When I am done watching TV, I don't leave the iPad on the couch, it goes with me, unlike the remote that is normally dedicated to the TV.
So why wouldn't I charge it every day?
I like microcars
Batteries. It's already annoying when the batteries in your remote run out every couple years. Now what: change them 3 times a week? Have a big ugly extension cable running across the floor to the coffee table for a recharging dock?
Just what I need. A two-handed remote.
Please pass the chips.
Was there actually anything he predicted that can't be done with a iPad and an AirPlay-compatible device, like a receiver or Apple TV 2?
Within that timeframe, everyone will already have one; a smart phone.
Think of the "smart TV" as having a web api: you see a second screen icon on your 'phone, drag a video onto it, the TV (in reality a computer) starts displaying that: pulling content directly not necessarily "X forwarded"
(it would be insane wasting wireless bandwidth in the house supplying a heavy bandwidth SuperHD device that-sits-in-one-place. Control it by wifi, but its main content over a wire.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
This sounds a lot like overkill, considering the amount of processing power in a tablet (and their beavy battery demands - the TV tablet will spend most of it's time on charge - which is even more inconvenient). Since all new TVs already contain a fair amount of "intelligence" the obvious choice is to increment what's already in the box, rather than needing to get a tablet computer for every member of the family - or one that can be used by everyone: from age 2 to age 100.
Ideally, the need for controlling a TV should be on the decrease very soon. Hopefully it's not too long a wait until they are able to learn who wants to watch what and come up with their own plan to record, play and manage the various viewers' schedule.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I don't have a tablet, nor will I until I can get one that's not tied to a phone contract.
Today's your lucky day! Pretty well every tablet can be bought without a contract. The ones that can are the exception, not the rule.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
But it incorrectly assumes that no one, including Apple, isn't working on exactly this.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/home-theater/apple-patents-new-touchscreen-remote-control-for-a-future-apple-tv/5610
This is not about creating a new remote for your TV. This is saying your TV is the "big remote display" of your phone (or iPad).
People already surf around with the iPad, they find a funny video of some guy feeding vegetables to his cat or whatever, then saying "Oh, watch this" and hand it to their friend. Now they'll just send it to the big screen.
The advantage is that the iPhone/iPad/Android interface is the one you're already very comfortable with. It's in your pocket 24x7. You already know how to use it and find things with it. The ugly 10-foot interface isn't important, because you look at the handheld to do everything.
The disadvantage is that the iPad isn't a great remote control device. It's made to be interacted with, not to be grabbed and clicked. When you're watching a show and the phone rings, you don't want to study the device to find the mute icon - you want to slide your thumb to the mute button and click. And it's fragile, you can't casually toss it to your friend.
So for everything up to the time when you start watching the show, the iPad is great. For everything after the show has started, current remotes are great.
John
I have been doing this for quite some time now with my Android tablet, my phone as well. Why is it that whenever people write stupid articles like this they act like the iPad is some how leading the charge?? The only thing the iPad really has going for it is market share, otherwise this is nothing new.
I already do that. I have a Mac Mini attached to my TV running XBMC as a media server, and I use my iPad using rowmote as the controller. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Apple - but it Just Works. In fact, I like the setup so much I made the mac mini my dedicated media server and got an Airbook for development and everyday computing.
Only thing I don't like is the Mac Mini doesn't have BluRay. Other than that, everything I could want.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
until you punch in the air as your team is close to scoring a goal and find yourselt automatically switched to the cooking channel...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Remotes today all miss the big feature we want: two-way communication. If the state of the devices can be reported back to the controls, it opens the door for better interfaces. Until that happens across the industry, we'll be stuck with cluttered and confusing designs. Apple AirPlay is promising, but it requires a compatible device and expensive hardware (Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc).
There certainly are interfaces that are easy to use from 10'+ away: quality wireless keyboards with an integrated cursor control. My screen is over ten feet away and has been for some time. Honestly, it's not advanced wizardry to set one's menu and input font sizes to something readable from a distance.
I currently use a high end wireless keyboard with an integrated mousepad, a Logitech DiNovo Edge. (Cheaper wireless keyboards with an integrated trackballs can do, but I've yet to find one that lasts.) Applications are set to escaped function keys, online streaming sources are prominently bookmarked, and the touch-activated lighted volume slider is an impressive stylistic touch. There is very little need to see and respond to a visual onscreen interface when watching or listening to media, only media selection.
Yes it's a big, thin remote, but I find it far less a PITA than four differently-sized remotes tied to various devices, with overlapping and inconsistent functions.
Of course Apple is working on exactly this. Why else would it keep coming up on Slashdot?
Do any of the people advocating using a $500 tablet as a remote to my $800 TV have any kids? The remote has been dropped more times than I can count (and that's just from me, not including the kids). It's regularly coated with chocolate, popcorn butter, and other food residue, and has survived more than one bath in coke.
When my wife wants the remote, I just toss it to her across the room, something I'm not likely to do when it's a heavy tablet (even if I wasn't worried about her missing it and having it crash to the floor).
I don't want a tablet to control my TV, I want a rugged remote and I don't want to add 50% (or even 10%) to the cost of the TV by having to purchase a tablet to control it.
Yes, it is cool.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Except remotes like this totally suck to use. I've tried several, including using the iPhone as a remote. Ignoring the 1-time setup pain, actually using it is annoying. At the very least, you have to keep looking up and down, between the remote and the device to do anything that takes more than one press to accomplish.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
10' interface works exceptionally well. Ask any TiVo user. Simple, intuitive, complete. Thing is, for $170 a year, most consumers expect more content than guide data and software updates, or at least access to your shows and recorded data. The industry hated the concept of TiVo and killed the real content (no cable or sat for you!), the users hated the restrictions that kept them from the content they'd recorded and limitations on what could be played from their own network. TiVo puts everything else to shame when it comes to controls and useful simplicity. Really, any TV control box that I can plug in, hand my wife the remote and manual, and walk away is an absolute winner.
The interface already exists, but it will be under patent lock and key for another decade.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No, the contention is that if you chose not to have a tablet, you will be made by marketing types to feel increasingly marginalized, just as if you chose not to have a Pet Rock, Chia Pet, Billy the Big Mouth Bass, computer, a cell phone, or some form of transportation. If you will be a luddite or intelligent enough not to buy into the hype, that is your right, but it comes with some costs and many benefits.
Increasingly in other areas such as automobiles, useless features are appearing that are only accessible to those with iPhones or iPads, they are really cool the first three times you use them, they cost almost nothing to the manufacturer, but add to both the purchase price and maintenance costs of the product and they will only be supported for a few years. It's like not having a PC in the 1990s: sure, you don't have to have one, but there is a bunch of stuff that you shouldn't care about and won't be able to do as a result. It's your choice how to make that tradeoff. Stay in the past, if you'd prefer, but don't bitch about the things you can't do as society moves on, or you can keep up with the Joneses / modern life, which is increasingly mobile-centric, and that's only going to accelerate paralleling the decline of modern society / education / freedom over the next decade.
FTFY
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
> Within that time frame, everyone will already have one; a smart phone.
Finally, I can call my remote to find the darn thing.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
We're already using iPads for this, and more. Our AV system is based around a Marantz AV7005 pre-pro, which has an extensive web interface hosted on its own web server that allows control over pretty much everything it does, including selecting av sources, room eq, etc. Very nice interface, actually. Because it's a web interface, there's no "app" required other than a web browser.
I also have the room lighting remote controlled with a web interface using a Synaccess network AC power controller, basically we can do almost anything we want from anywhere -- as our home is basically a large open loft design, that means controlling the AV system from the bedroom, too. The AV7005 brings up my MA700 power amplifier array as part of the power-on sequence, also puts them in standby when shut down.
We use a smallish secondary LCD monitor rather than burn hours off the projector for things like streaming audio, also controlled by IR. You can select between them using the AV7005 web interface, and they power up and down based upon having valid input or not, so it all works together very nicely.
This stuff isn't ultra high-end, it's more mid- to mid-high, but these capabilities are trickling down to the broad consumer price ranges just as everything does. Pioneer has some nice remote iPad AV control stuff too, implemented as an actual app.
The iPad itself makes for an awesome control surface.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Or do you just have a dedicated tablet that never leaves the viewing area? What about multiple TVs? Gets expensive really quick.
Uhm, this has already happened in some high dollar home theatre installs. Crestron and other whole home media solutions have touch screen tablets that dock into the wall near the TV, have a lock mechanism so kids can't take it off the wall, and allow you to control the volume and TV channel / music & lighting in every room of the house already. They have had iPad and iPhone apps for this too that lets you administer the system remotely and even view security cams via Internet for at least the past 2 years anyhow.
For other rooms you can get touch screen interfaces about the size of a light switch that detach, and use customisable flash based interfaces, which allow you to control the home AV gear in any room as well. When docked into the wall it's "screen saver" returns it to the "light switch" state so it just acts as your light switch.
These things will get cheaper... but this article is very old news, that or someone is severely out of touch with the state of the art in home theatre systems.
DirectTv offers a nice free app for the iPad that has all the functionality of the remote, plus a bunch of other great features. you can stream some content to the ipad itself, you can use the ipad to control the contents of your DVR and recording schedule, you can set it up to know your favorite teams and show scores and game times/channels, etc. the ipad is actually much faster for switching channels than the remote, since you can use your finger to fling through the guide, as opposed to using directtv's super slow on-screen ui.
i could live a little longer in this prison
I agree, and I've been there and done that.
I had a Philips Pronto remote control, one of the early ones. The great thing was that you could program its touchscreen with anything you wanted, down to a pixel level if you wanted to take the time. So, it could emulate any remote. Sounds great... but in practice, it sucked. The thing had hard buttons for channel up/down, volume up/down, and mute. There were two additional programmable hard buttons. For anything else, you'd have to hit the button on the side to turn on the backlight (if it was dark in the room at all), look down at the screen, possibly scroll through a number of pages, find the button, and press it. Trying to use a TiVo was an exercise in frustration; you simply cannot target taps on a touchscreen accurately without looking.
The Pronto quickly became the device we used to turn the A/V system on and off, and change modes... a macro device. For actually watching TV, we used the TiVo peanut, because it could be operated by touch while you were looking elsewhere.
I tried using various iPad apps to control the TiVo. They suffer from the same problem. The official TiVo app is a little better; it offers gesture-based control as an option, but it's not compelling. Besides, I want to be doing other things on my iPad while I'm watching TV, not using it as an outrageously expensive yet awkward remote. The few things the apps are good for are text entry and browsing the program guide without interrupting the current program.
I've since upgraded from the Pronto to a Logitech Harmony One. It's not perfect, and it's not as customizable as the old Pronto, but it's pretty good. It has enough hard buttons to control everything without looking. It supports macros to turn stuff on and off and change settings. It has a touchscreen to accommodate those few functions that don't have hard buttons. Of course, any time you have to use the touchscreen, it's the same problem: you have to look down and find the button.
The solution isn't making the tablet a remote, or making the tablet the TV and the TV a remote display. I'm not sure what the solution is, but part of it would be some way to simply "flick" what I'm watching from tablet to TV and back again, without locking the tablet into feeding the TV or vice-versa.