Wow, Google Has Ported My Ten Thousand Button Nightmare To The iPhone!
Consumer vs tech friendly - I wonder if that's behind the huge difference in UX between the Google TV and Apple TV remote apps on iPhone.
I'm quite fed up with tech friendlyness, so I stick with something which I can understand. Even when I'm tired, sleepy and un-concentrated.
A post from techcrunch.com by MG Siegler has the whole story. Here is a part:
I'm quite fed up with tech friendlyness, so I stick with something which I can understand. Even when I'm tired, sleepy and un-concentrated.
A post from techcrunch.com by MG Siegler has the whole story. Here is a part:
Earlier today, Google announced the Google TV Remote app for the iPhone. On one hand, it’s great that they’re willing to release this on a rival platform. On the other, ahhhhhhhhh!
To me, the big benefit of an app-based, touchscreen remote is that you can do away with the conventions that have constrained remote controls for decades. Google does that somewhat with things like the cool voice search. But they also manage to fill the app with a nightmare jumble of buttons. I mean, you’re going to need a manual to figure out what all of those buttons do.
The layout of the buttons when all of them are exposed seems to make very little sense — they clearly have just crammed as many buttons as they can on to a single screen. In the screenshot on the right, I count 33 buttons. 33!
...
Compare this app to the Remote app that Apple makes for the Apple TV. That app has almost no buttons. Instead, they focus on a large touchscreen area so you can use the remote without looking at it. This has long been the only good thing about button-based remote controls. Google managed to kill the only good thing while porting the bad, Apple did the opposite.